Show Me What I'm Looking For
by MaryIsNerdy
Summary: This was the sort of thing that could only happen to Kelsi Nielson. Who else could possibly have to help plan their ex-boyfriend's wedding? Kelsi and Ryan future fic.
1. Prologue

Hi! This is sort of my first attempt at any fanfiction - I sort of lurk here, but don't really post anything. I wrote this and figured, why not?

Anyways, this is a Kelsi and Ryan fic that takes place a couple of years into the future. The prologue is set right after graduating from Juilliard, then the story skips ahead a few years in the next chapter.

Regrettably, I do not own High School Musical - or the title of the story, which is based off of the Carolina Liar song of the same name.

Well ... I hope you read it and enjoy!

**Show Me What I'm Looking For**

Prologue

-------------------

"Keep in touch, okay!" In spite of the situation and how she was currently feeling, Kelsi Nielson gave a slight chuckle. As if she was planning not to?

"Of course," she said to her boyfriend, Ryan Evans.

"Come home soon," he urged her. "I mean - I didn't mean that - I hope you don't come home for a while ... uh ... just come home when you're ready, all right?"

"Yeah," Kelsi said, swallowing. For all purposes, however, Kelsi Nielson _was _going home. Back to her first home, anyways. The reason of her traveling wasn't so pleasant for the recently minted college graduate, though. Her mom had recently found out she had pancreatic cancer - and it was spreading fast. As her dad had passed away when she was younger, Kelsi had taken apon herself the responsibilty to stay with her mother and take care of her.

"I love you, Kels. Call me when you land," Ryan said. Kelsi nodded.

"Yeah, I will. Love you too." Ryan leaned down and quickly kissed her on the lips.

"Go, hurry, you're gonna miss your flight!" he said, suddenly breaking apart and checking the clock on his cellphone.

"Okay, bye!" Kelsi, realizing Ryan was right, began to run to the gate exit, waving behind her. Little did she know that when she stepped into the boarding area out of New York and into the desert confines of New Mexico, she was never going to return.


	2. Chapter One

Hiii! Here is the first full-length chapter. I hope whoever reads this enjoys it!

Disclaimer: I do not own the High School Musical series.

**Show Me What I'm Looking For**

Chapter One

------------------

"Lovely playing today." An elderly woman approached Kelsi and smiled warmly at her. Kelsi laughed modestly.

"Thank you," she said. Kelsi slid off of the piano bench she had been sitting on for about the last hour. "Can I help put anything away?" she asked, gesturing around the room.

"Oh no, Dear. You're help enough to us," the lady said. Kelsi smiled and began to make her way out of the building to go and pick up some lunch, even though it was no use. The post-church rush home was still in full force and the parking lot was likely jammed. Nonetheless, she walked slowly out to her car and just sat inside, turning on a CD of classical music to listen to in an attempt to burn some time before she was to meet with some couple was coming to pick out music for their wedding.

Kelsi Nielson had never planned to stay permanently in New Mexico, but things don't always work out as they plan. She had every full intention of moving back to New York City after everything was ... done and starting over. However, she was just sort of sucked back into Albuquerque - and once you come back home, you never leave.

Immediantly after getting off that plane from New York, she headed straight to her mom's home, and she after that, she hardly left. Things were happening so fast, it was difficult for Kelsi to wrap her brain around it. Against Kelsi's pleading, her mother had made it quite clear after a round of failed treatments that she wasn't going to spend the last bit of her life in a hopsital. So, all Kelsi could do was basically whatever she could to make her mom comfortable - even though it was painful for her to do so.

Meanwhile, the more time she spent in New Mexico, the more her communication with Ryan began to decrease. Kelsi supposed that this was what a long-distance relationship was like, talking on through e-mails - Ryan claimed he was too busy to have the time for a phone conversation. She hoped that this was true, considering that she would send him long, detailed e-mails describing all of the day's events and she would wait forever for him to reply with something like: _I miss you. How're things going?_

It made sense that Ryan should be busy, he had recently signed on to be an assistant choreographer on a New Jersey production of some musical (he was so bust he had never gotten around to actually telling her which musical) and if things went well, they would likely be able to have a revival of it on Broadway. Kelsi completely understood about how important this was, this was a _huge_ deal and Kelsi was happy for Ryan. However, she was dealing with her mom dying and all he could say was "how're thing going?"

Eventually - after what felt like a painfully long process that went by too fast - Kelsi's mom did die. Though Kelsi had been expecting it, it was still hard. Luckily her uncle, John, came into town to help her with the whole funeral planning process, because not only was it kind of hard, but Kelsi was was completely lost on what to do. After meeting with the funeral home to make arrangements for a visitation, they headed over to the local church for plan the actual funeral.

Kelsi had a pretty good idea of what she wanted to be said/played during the funeral, so it wasn't a terribly long process, until one of the elderly church ladies who was helping them out, approached them.

"I'm sorry," she said in a quavering voice, "but we don't seem to have a pianist available for this Thursday." Thursday was the day the funeral was supposed to be on.

Kelsi decided to let her uncle handle this one. "Well, what days is on available on?" he inquired.

"We can't reschedule the funeral, can we?," Kelsi said to her John in a quiet voice. "I mean, the funeral home already sent the newspaper the obituary."

"Actually," the lady said, "we don't have a pianist for any date. We just cannot afford it anymore."

"Oh," said Kelsi. She wasn't sure what she was supposed to say to that remark. "I could do it for free ... "

"Can you play the piano?" the lady asked. Kelsi smiled and nodded. John looked over at Kelsi.

"Do you really want to do that?" he asked. She would miss the procession and out of the church. She didn't really mind too much. Kelsi nodded. It was good for the church, a free piano player. This enabled her mom's funeral would have music. It also meant Kelsi would have a bit of a distraction from her mother's death over the next couple of days.

So Kelsi learned all of the music she had picked out, and come time for her mom's funeral, things went by smoothly. Apart from the sympathy she recieved after finishing playing, she also recieved compliments for her playing. In fact, the elderly lady she had spoken to earlier walked over to her.

"That was marvelous playing," she said. "It's too bad you can't play here all of the time!"

Kelsi wasn't entirely sure that was supposed to make her feel inclined to play the piano at that church, but she felt a twinge of guilt.

"Well, I could play here for a while," she offered. "For free ... " The lady's face lit up.

"Oh _thank you_!" she said. Kelsi smiled. What would it hurt to just stay home for a couple of weeks while she tried to figure out what exactly she was going to do with her post-college life?

Fast forward two years, and she was still there.

Kelsi felt too guilty to ever leave the church. They seemed so, so grateful for her to be there. Every time she convinced herself she should move to some place for where songwriters could find success, she chickened out. Of course, Kelsi had a knack for chickening out of things. Ever since she was in middle school, she was just the passive type of person. She was a listener, not a talker. She observed - and had no desire to be observed. She just sort of let things go as they wish.

So that's exactly what she did with her relationship with Ryan after a while. She was beginning to sense that he wasn't really invested in their relationship and just sort of gave up. She didn't see the need to reply to two sentence e-mails anymore. As much as she knew she loved Ryan, something had changed between them. Distance was unfriendly.

Finally, she e-mailed him, telling him that she was going to say in New Mexico a little long. She urged him not to wait for her and that they should "take a break." He e-mailed back "okay" and that was the end of that. While the idea of them not being together was hard to Kelsi, for all purposes, they had been sort of been broken up for the past several months. Even so, the second she hit "send" on that e-mail, she regretted it.

So, time went by. Kelsi began to supplement her "career" (if you can call it that, considering she did it for free) of playing piano at church with a career in songwriting. And things went unpredictably amazing. See, she had started off writing a song for some local band. Then this local band somehow hit it big with the single Kelsi had written for them. Then, somehow in a massive blur, Kelsi was getting all sorts of requests from famous people and ended up nominated for a Grammy. It was exactly the sort of thing she had dreamed of when she was a kid. Of course, Kelsi wasn't exactly one for the fanfare - the band she'd written for recieved the credit for the song (in the media, anyways - and she could care less, it was still exciting), and she watched the award show on television. Her song didn't win, but it was still just so beyond incredible.

She tried not to be interested in Ryan's life, but she found it hard not to try to find out certain things that were going on in it. To everyone's confusion, Gabriella Montez, one of Kelsi's closest friends and Sharpay Evans, Ryan's twin sister, had befriended eachother sometime during college (the pair had had a bad history together). So, Kelsi would ask Gabriella what everyone was up to. By everyone, she meant Ryan.

"By everyone you mean Ryan," Gabriella said when Kelsi asked her over the phone. Kelsi was grateful that this was a phone conversation, or else Gabriella would see how red she was turning from blushing.

"No, I mean everyone! Like how's Troy and - "

"Troy is great," Gabriella said. Troy Bolton was another close friend of Kelsi's and was also Gabriella's fiance. They had that sort of perfect relationship, like the couple from high school that's still happily together at your twenty-five year reunion. "According to Sharpay, Ryan's fine. He's dating a girl from his production of _Hairspray_."

And from that point on, that's all Kelsi would hear about when she asked about her one-time boyfriend - the _Hairspray_ girl. Despite her best efforts, Kelsi was undeniably jealous. How could she not be? After about a year, she just stopped asking and Gabriella didn't tell her. She didn't care to know anymore. He had moved on into a serious relationship so fast! Kelsi convinced herself was too busy for dating - and at a time, she thought Ryan was, too.

As successful as her professional life was working out to be in Albuquerque of all places, Kelsi's personal life was just sort of a mess.

---

"I don't understand why we have to get married in this desert."

Ryan Evans sighed. They had surely gone over this at least a million times, but she still felt the need to ask the same question over and over again.

"Amy," he said softly in response, "we don't have a choice. You know my dad isn't doing well."

Amy Lyons rolled her eyes. "I know, but it's so dull here. And too hot! I'll like sweat off all of my make-up at our reception."

"Then it's a good thing the reception is going to be inside," Ryan quipped. Amy rolled her eyes at Ryan, who smirked. They were having a reception at Lava Springs, a country club owned by Ryan's parents, which fortunately Amy (as picky as she was) had decided was fancy enough.

Amy was Ryan's fiancee. They had met during rehersals for an off-Broadway production of the play _Hairspray_. Ryan was given the task of assistant choreographer, which basically meant take aside anyone who couldn't dance and teach them the moves. His first person he had to work with: Amy. Amy had the role of a brat named Amber. While he felt bad to even think it, he had no idea how Amy even got a role until he learned her dad (an incredibly wealthy man) was helping fund the show. She was a good singer, but she was a less-than-talented dancer. However, after a long, long time with Ryan, she began to improve drastically.

She also began flirting with him. Ryan deflected all of her advances, as he had a girlfriend - and while things were hard between them, he loved Kelsi. He was completely blindsided when Kelsi sent him an e-mail essentially breaking up with him. So Ryan began to not care when Amy continued to be all over him. Finally, he surrendered and agreed to go out with her. Amy was, more or less, a rebound from Kelsi.

Well, things went well in the show and the production moved from New Jersey to Broadway for a revival. However, the actor portaying teenaged guy character, Link, couldn't perform in that run. There was had no time to hold auditions or have anyone learn the role, so Ryan somehow got shoved into the performance. This required Amy and Ryan to work even closer, at they play a couple at the beginning of the play, and somehow his rebound turned into a actual relationship.

Or at least it must've, because fast forward a few years and they were still together.

Though Ryan had never gotten that sense of closure from Kelsi, he assumed they must be over. That sucked for Ryan, though even if she did call up and say she wanted them to get back together, he couldn't because he was with Amy.

Now maybe Amy came on a little too strong, but Ryan couldn't understand why he recieved so many negative remarks about her. In all honesty, she reminded him of his sister, Sharpay. While this probably explained why Ryan alone could put up with her, this was probably a bad thing (and kinda creepy).

Anyways, after dating for quite a while, Amy began to pressure Ryan into proposing. This made Ryan uncomfortable. He didn't feel like they knew eachother enough or that either of them were mature enough to be married. Nonetheless, after putting up with her pesistant hint-dropping (and sometimes literally begging), he finally caved - under one condition. If they're getting married, they're getting married in New Mexico. Ryan's dad had endured two heart attacks in just the last year, and he didn't like the idea of him traveling across the country. Grudgingly, Amy agreed.

Not that Amy wasn't going to complain about Albuquerque every chance she got. However, she wanted a wedding and Ryan had made it quite clear where it was going to take place.

"So, like, where are we even headed?" she asked.

"To go pick out music for the wedding," Ryan replied. "Apparently the piano player at the church is really, really good. Do you have anything in mind?"

"I'll have to go back to New York to buy a dress," Amy said, apparently having not listened to what Ryan said. "I mean, there's almost nothing out here." Amy had been whining about missing New York every since they got on the plane to Albuquerque. They had both ended their runs in the show and Ryan suggested that they stay in New Mexico for a while, to plan their wedding. Apparently, this was a bad idea to Amy.

"Whatever," Ryan shrugged. Amy was a poor listener. They sat in silence for a few moments until Ryan pulled into the church. Though Amy had already seen it, she surveyed the building with a look of utmost loathing. She felt that it was "too small."

They both exited their car and made their way into the seemingly empty church. "Great," Amy whispered to Ryan. "No one's here."

"I'm sure the piano player is here," Ryan muttered. Amy took matters into her own hands.

"HELLO?! IS ANYONE HERE?" she yelled. "HELLOOOOO? WE DON'T HAVE A LOT OF TIME, YOU KNOW!"

"Amy!" Ryan gasped in a hushed voice, automatically placing his hand over Amy's mouth to quiet her.

"I'm sorry, I'll be out in just a second," Kelsi, who'd came back inside the church after listening to music for the past hour, called from behind the piano. She groaned. She really disliked dealing with the "Bridezilla"-type.

Ryan sat down in a chair near the piano as Amy paced around impatiently behind him. Kelsi stepped off of her piano bench and Amy marched over to her. Ryan, whose chair was facing the opposite direction didn't notice her come out.

"Okay, finally," Amy said to Kelsi, who looked at her, taken aback. "So my fiance and I don't have a lot of time here today, so let's just do this."

Apparently, there was no time for introductions. Ryan, who knew that Amy would have final say over everything in the wedding anyways, didn't even bother to come over.

"All right," Kelsi said in a shaky voice. She was clearly intimidated by that blonde girl standing in front of her. "Well, I have books of music, if you want to look at them. I can play whatever you want, if you want me to play something popular, not a church song, I can ... "

Hmm. Ryan knew he recognized that voice, only he didn't know from where. He paused and sat very still, listening quite carefully to what the piano player was saying. After hearing the girl talk for justa moment, did he realize why it sounded so familiar. But no ... no, it _couldn't _be.

Ryan whipped around to face Amy and the piano player. "Kelsi?" he asked, his jaw dropping at the sight of what was clearly his ex-girlfriend awkwardly thumbing through of book of wedding music with his fiancee.

Kelsi took her gaze off of the music and looked up. Her eyes widened in clear shock and horror at what was clearing her ex-boyfriend, lazily sitting in a chair while his bratty fiancee looked over a book of wedding music. "Ryan?" she asked, hoping that it was just someone who looked and sounded just like Ryan ... and someone who just also recognized her for whatever reason.

"Do you, like, knoweachother?" she asked Ryan, who seemed to be in a state of shock.

Oh no. This was so, so wrong.


	3. Chapter Two

Wooow! I got nine reviews, I'm really, really flattered! Huuuge thanks to DC World, Dramione x3, fallinrain, rockyshadow, digigirl02, jenpen1027, rkfollower, and krfan! Another thanks to anyone who added this to alerts! :)

Here is the second chapter! There isn't a whole lot going on in here, mostly the reactions from Kelsi and Ryan. I think things will start to get a bit more exciting in the next chapter :)

Anyways, thank you for reading and I hope you enjoy it!

**S****how Me What I'm Looking For**

Chapter Two

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_"__All right class, I have some very exciting news!" Kelsi's homeroom teacher during seventh grade at East Middle School clapped her hands together excitedly, as though she was presenting the class of pre-teens a great treat. "There will be two new students joining our class. Please welcome Sharpay and Ryan Evans. They just moved here all the way from Newport, Rhode Island. Isn't that great?"_

_There was a murmur of consent from the class. Kelsi, who (unlike her peers) took slight interest in the arrival of new classmates, glanced up from her desk at the pair of new students. She instantly assumed that they must be twin siblings. Well, it seemed somewhat obvious - they had the same last name, were in the same grade, and they had both moved from the same area. However, despite the fact that they were fraternal twins, there were also some physical similarities between the pair. For example, they both had the same shade of blonde hair. Kelsi also picked up quickly on some differences, though - and not so much appearance as more of personality. The girl was standing confidently in front of the class, a wide grin stretched across her face. She sort of oozed confidence in an almost arrogant manner. The boy stood just an inch behind her, looking almost desperately at his sister, as though he had to follow her to pick out a seat. _

The tension in the room was palpable. Ryan had nearly jumped to his feet when he turned around in his chair and faced Kelsi, and was now standing next to Amy, who had marched over to Ryan after ignoring her ask if he knew the piano girl. She was tapping her foot impatiently, apparently still waiting for a response, but it seemed both Ryan and Kelsi had been stunned into silence. It was sort of like when Kelsi saw Ryan for the first time - an uncomfortable boy standing next to a completely different type of person ... in both cases, this was (ironically) a blonde girl who oozed confidence in an almost arrogant manner.

"Ryan!" Amy finally snapped. "Who is this girl?" If Kelsi didn't have more pressing issues on her mind all of a sudden, she might've been taken aback by being referred to as "this girl." But Kelsi could hardly even think clearly with him just standing in front of her. How was she supposed to work for Ryan after all of their history? This was the sort of thing that could only happen to Kelsi Nielson. Who else could possibly have to help plan their ex-boyfriend's wedding?

"Uhm, uh, this is my Kelsi Nielson," Ryan finally stammered, Amy raising her eyebrows. "No! No, what I meant was that this is my college friend, Kelsi Nielson. Yeah, we were friends in college. Well, actually we were friends in high school, too. But we were really close in college ... " Ryan's voice trailed off as he stared at Kelsi in utter confusion. He was looking at Kelsi as though he couldn't believe it was her. It was almost like he though she was some sort of hallucination and was just going to disappear at any second.

Wow, Kelsi wished that was possible.

"You never mentioned having a friend named Kelsi in college," Amy said harshly to Ryan.

"It never came up!" Ryan whispered apologetically to Amy, just loud enough that Kelsi could here every word he had said. Amy rolled her eyes and marched over to the piano bench. Kelsi was too afraid to move, and Ryan just continued to stand where he was.

"Honey! Aren't you coming?" Amy called over to Ryan, her voice suddenly different. Rather than harsh or demanding, it was giggling and almost irritatingly sweet. Even Ryan gave her a look of disbelief, though he walked over next to her in an automatic fashion. Amy gave Ryan (who now looked beyond baffled) a smile, before looking over at Kelsi. "Hurry up, we have a lot to do.

Rather than walking towards the piano, Kelsi felt her feet moving robotically in the over direction. "Please excuse me," she mumbled as she walked backwards, then breaking into a job to the bathroom at the other end of the church. She swung the door open and rushed in, pausing when she first entered to catch her breath. "Oh no," she said aloud to herself once the door shut. "This isn't happening."

Kelsi walked over to the sink and turned on the faucet, splashing some water on her face. In the mirror above the sinks, she looked exactly how she felt: a combination of stunned, mortified, slightly out of breath, and wet.

"Okay, okay, so this is a dream," Kelsi said to herself. "This couldn't possibly happen in real life, right? No, because Ryan Evans would never come back to Albuquerque. Plus he would never marry someone like that girl, so this is a dream. It must be!" Groaning, Kelsi added on, "I need to sit down."

She walked over to the thing in the in bathroom closest to a seat: the toilet. Sighing, she put down the lid and sat. "What on earth is going on?" she asked herself, running her fingers through her hair. It was bad enough that Ryan was suddenly home in the place where she 'worked', but home _and_ engaged to be married? That was like being punched in the stomach and then being slapped across the face. Too much for one day.

"And that girl is a total brat," Kelsi continued thoughtfully to herself. "I mean, she at least seems that way." Kelsi knew better than to judge first impressions of people - for example, her first impression of Troy Bolton was he that was some stereotypical jock, and she found out that she was wrong. However, something seemed off about that Amy girl. She just didn't seem at all nice, and definitely not Ryan's type. "But how would I know his type?" Kelsi pathetically asked herself. Maybe she _was_ a total brat, and maybe that's a reason Ryan liked her. What did she know?

"Well, we did go out for four years," Kelsi reminded herself. "Not that he even cared enough to tell his future wife. How would he not tell his girlfriend about the person he was with through all of college?" That was something of another blow to Kelsi.

Finally, Kelsi mumbled, "I don't think I can do this." _Why? _asked a voice inside her head. _Not because you have feelings for him, right?_

"I don't have feelings for him," Kelsi scoffed. "Or else I-I - "

_Would be out there doing your job? If you don't have feelings for him, you wouldn't have locked yourself in a bathroom stall. _

"I do not have feelings for Ryan!" Kelsi said in a much too loud voice, that made her slap her hand over her mouth in fear that Ryan or Amy might've heard her. Frustrated, she asked "Why do I keep talking to myself?"

Kelsi stood up and walked back to the sink again. "Okay, this is fine. Ryan's engaged. Cool. I can do this, this is my job. Be professional, Kelsi."

After checking herself over the mirror to make sure she didn't look too overly-frazzled, she opened up the door and stepped back out into the church, resigning herself to her work. However, the scene she'd left was slightly different from the one she faced apon her return. Ryan was sitting alone at the piano and Amy was chatting on her cell phone. While Amy seemed oblivious to Kelsi's arrival back, Ryan was instantly alert and climbed off the bench to approach her. _It was only a matter of time, _Kelsi thought miserably.

"Kelsi, it's okay if you - "

"About time," chided Amy from behind them, cutting Ryan off from whatever he was about to say. "Hey, I have to go," she said into her phone, "Yeah, I'll call you back in a second. Bye." Amy shut her phone and placed it inside of some expensive looking purse swung over her shoulder. "All right, so you're back but now we have to go."

"Oh," said Kelsi.

"Yeah, I said we didn't have a lot of time, didn't I? We'll just have to arrange to meet again," Amy replied. Kelsi didn't relish the idea. "When are you busy?" she asked.

"Well, I - "

"Yeah, I figured you wouldn't be." Amy replied without giving Kelsi two seconds to answer. Kelsi felt her jaw literally drop at her remark. It was like being in high school all over again! Kelsi turned to Ryan, half-expecting him to stick up for her like he'd done before, but all he did was give Amy a surprised look she didn't even notice. It was like he was back to the same old Ryan she had known before breaking out from his overbearing sister. Only now he was stuck under his overbearing bride? "So as I am incredibly busy," Amy continued, "we can just call eachother and set up an appointment when I have the time. You know, commuting between here and New York, planning a wedding - it's very ... stressful."

"Of course," Kelsi said through gritted teeth. Ignoring her comment, Amy took off her purse and opened it. After fumbling around for a moment or two, Amy pulled out a small piece of paper and passed it to Kelsi. "My business card," she explained. Kelsi looked down at the small piece of pink paper, listing her talents. "Just came in. Nice, aren't they? Anyways, we can just contact you through the church, so I guess that's all for today."

"Okay," said Kelsi, who was part thankful for their departure and almost mad they had to do this all over again, she would've liked to get it over with. "Well ... bye then."

Amy gave Kelsi a phony smile that she tried her hardest to return. With that, she walked out. To Kelsi's surprise, Ryan didn't follow her out, but stood in the same spot, looking very much like he wanted to talk to Kelsi.

"Kelsi, I - "

Deciding that this conversation could wait, Kelsi pretended to not hear him and walked out to the exit. Ryan turned quiet, but he walked out after Kelsi, apparently in desperate pursuit to talk to her. However, as soon as they got outside, Amy yelled "Ryan!" across the parking lot. To Kelsi's relief (and minimalistic surprise), he headed over to her. Kelsi walked straight over to her car and drove out as fast as she possibly could to the one place she could think of: the pharmacy.

--

Of the gang of students Kelsi hung around with at East High, only two remained in New Mexico. Among these two was Kelsi's friend, Martha Cox. After finishing college (and a graduate program), she returned to New Mexico and took up a job as a pharmacist. She was also fortunate enough to find space in her career for a dancing passion she had: she taught dance to little kids. Apart from professional success, she was lucky with her personal life as well. Ever since returning to Albuquerque post-college, she had been seeing her old high school crush, Jason Cross. Jason was the only other East High Wildcat still hanging around. He didn't go to college after graduating from East High, but he found success working for a local indie film production company.

Kelsi was heading to the pharmacy to talk to Martha, because she really needed someone to talk to at the moment. Martha was her closest friend in New Mexico, and she gave good advice: something that Kelsi sort of needed urgently.

She pulled her car into the near-empty pharmacy lot and parked. Making her way past aisles of medicines and whatnot, she approached a desk in the back. Martha was sitting at the desk, reading a book - in fact she was so immersed in this book, she didn't even notice Kelsi's appearance. With a smile, Kelsi tapped a bell on the desk that was to alert workers that there was a person picking up a prescription. Martha's head shot up automatically, her eyes darted around until they settled on Kelsi.

"Wow, I was sort of spaced out there," Martha said, chuckling. "What are you doing here, Kels?"

"I wanted to talk to you," Kelsi said. "I need some advice."

"All right," said Martha, setting her book down on her desk. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing," Kelsi lied. "It's just ... well, guess who I ran into today."

"Ryan," Martha replied easily as though she knew her answer to be fact.

"That obvious?" Kelsi asked, biting her lower lip. Martha laughed and nodded.

"Well? What happened?" she demanded.

"It was awful," Kelsi moaned, walking behind the pharmacy desk and sitting down in a chair adjacent to Martha's. "You'll never believe it. He literally walked right into the church with his fiancee, because I am supposed to play their music at their wedding. It was so uncomfortable."

"Well? What did you say to eachother?" Martha asked. Kelsi thought over their meeting in her mind.

"Nothing," she admitted. "I kinda hid in the bathroom the entire time."

Martha laughed, but her face turned sympatheic. "That's awful, I'm sorry," she said.

"I'm not even done!" Kelsi said. "His fiancee was so awful. She was a vapid, attention-needy brat."

"Wow, Kels," said Martha. "Little harsh?"

Kelsi wasn't the type of person to scrutinize another behind their back. Actually, she was quite the contrary, more of the 'if-you-don-'t-have-anything-nice-to-say, don't-say-anything-at-all' type of person. However, there was something about Amy that sort of rubbed her the wrong way, even if she didn't really know her. What she did know about her was that she was totally unprofessional and plain rude. Though maybe Kelsi was going a little overboard.

"She was ridiculous. Look at this business card she gave me," Kelsi said, pulling the card out of her purse and reciting it. "Amy Lyons: beautiful singer, actress and dancer. Available at blah, blah, blah, you get the point. Yeah, because a Broadway actress needs a 'business card.'"

Martha tried her hardest to stiffle a laugh. "Maybe she's a little conceited, but she can't be all horrible. You automatically dislike her by who she's marrying."

"Not true," Kelsi said. "Besides being controlling to Ryan, she was also rude to me. She was all like 'oh, you wouldn't have any plans. It's hard being a superstar like me, trying to plan a wedding.'"

"Geez, you're making her sound worse than Sharpay circa-high school era," Martha joked. "I mean, you know why she was like that, right?"

"She's awful?" Kelsi replied. Martha shook her head.

"She's trying to upset you. She wants you to be mad and jealous, because you have a history with Ryan. She was basically marking her territory and trying to intimidate you," Martha replied.

"She didn't even know Ryan had ever met a girl named Kelsi before," she replied.

"She's a girl, she probably picked up on the ex-girlfriend vibe," Martha shrugged. Kelsi wasn't convinced. "So, how was she 'controlling' Ryan?"

"She was basically all '_come over here_,' and stuff to him," Kelsi replied. "She was exactly like Sharpay was. And Ryan just went along with it, too. He's changed a lot since college. He's exactly like how he _used_ to be, just like a doormat. Amy flat-out insulted me and he just stood and watched."

"Probably because he was confused and he didn't know what to say," Martha said. "That's a pretty tricky situation to be in, you know. He's a guy. Guys can be pretty stupid sometimes," Martha said with a sigh, looking towards the front of the pharmacy where a cheerful Jason had just entered and was waving to Martha from, wearing (of all things) a Burger King crown on his head. Kelsi giggled.

"You're probably right, but I don't know what I'm going to do. I honestly do not think I can do this," she said.

"It would be hard, but maybe it would be nice for you," Martha said. "Maybe you'll finally get a sense of closure. It would just sort of end things and you can properly move on and find someone else, someone better. Plus, who knows how things will work out. Maybe you two can even be friends."

"I doubt that last part, but I guess you make a good point," Kelsi said. "It's my job. I'll do it and get out."

"Good," said Martha. "Speaking of which, it's about time for the pharmacy to close for the day, do you want to go get something to eat?"

"Sure," said Kelsi, thankful for the idea of distraction through food. _Martha is right, _Kelsi thought to herself, as she walked out of the pharmacy. _Getting some closure would be nice. _

Even so, Kelsi saw no way that this could possibly go well.

--

"I'm so tired." Amy yawned as her and Ryan stepped inside the hotel room they had been staying in while planning their wedding. While Ryan found living in a hotel to be slightly depressing, their only other options were renting an apartment, or staying at his parent's house. The hotel won.

"It's only the middle of the afternoon," Ryan pointed out. "Don't you want to get something to eat?"

"Nah, maybe later. You can eat by youself," she said.

"You've been sleeping a lot lately," Ryan said. "Are you okay?"

Amy brushed her hand off in the air dismissively. "Yeah."

Ryan shrugged as Amy walked away and made to do as she told him: eat by himself. He ordered something off of the room service guide and turned on the television set in hopes of some dumb distraction.

Today had been a long day, he noted. After leaving the church, they headed uptown to some fancy flower store. Standing back, he let Amy make the desicions for the arrangements. Of course, Amy was determined to dislike every single thing about New Mexico, and after the longest time looking around, she declared it a bust.

"We'll have to go elsewhere," she said. "This selection is awful."

Though the time spent wandered in the flower store wasn't anywhere near as uncomfortable as the brief time spent in the church. Kelsi? Kelsi was the church pianist? He knew she said she was taking a break in New Mexico, but _wow_. He always thought she was destined for more great things like professionally writing music or even plays. He would have thought the last place Kelsi Nielson would be two, three years after college would be the hometown church.

That wasn't even the mot pressing issue of the matter, however. How was he supposed to work with Kelsi to plan his own wedding? That's so ... awkward. It was entirely wrong and just not possible, right?

_It could be a good thing_, Ryan thought. _Some closure._ _Well ... I'm engaged. That's about as much closure as you can get. _In terms of moving on, things were perfectly closed for Ryan. However, he of course still thought about her, and wondered why she never came back, or contacted him again. If she was over him, he would have appreciated some explanation why. If they had continued some communication over the past two years, they probably wouldn't have ended up in this mess they were in at the moment, right?

Apart from that, there was also the fact that Ryan felt that making Kelsi feel like she had to go to his wedding (much less work at it) would be a rude thing to do to Kelsi. _Then again, she did initiate your break-up, _Ryan reminded himself, before shaking his head at his seemingly bitter thoughts. _It doesn't make a difference at this point._

As if things weren't weird enough with getting married, he would have to contend with this. As he was something of an eternal optimist, Ryan would like to think that they could be friends, but even he acknowledged that this highly unlikely. First off, they didn't talk for two years, and Ryan never knew why. Also, she just flat-out ignored him when she was walking out of the church! Kelsi might not have intended for it to seem that way, but Ryan knew better. Did Kelsi not possibly think that he knew he too well at this point to be able to tell she was pretending to not hear him?

Which was exactly why they couldn't do this. No, they would have to find another piano player. The next time they met up, Ryan would tell her she didn't have to do that, because it was just added stress for him - and her, no doubt. He would just have to tell her she didn't have to do this. There wasn't any possible way they could do this.


	4. Chapter Three

First off, thank you to DC World, rkfollower, rockyshadow, digigirl02, krfan and jenpen1027 for reviewing the last chaper. I really appreciate any sort of comment or constructive criticism, so huge thanks! Also, thank you to anyone who just added this to their alerts!

I sort of lied when I said there would be more excitement in this chaper, it is sort of a (neceassary) filler chapter. However, I made more of a laid-out storyline for this, so I may actually finish it! Woohoo. (I have a terrible problem with anything I write - I'll be really inspired, then give up) Anyways, at least Ryan and Kelsi actually talk in this chapter!

Sadly, I still don't own the HSM series or the song this story is based off of - though I'm going to start incorporating it into the storyline! Technically, I do own the Amy character and the band I introduce in this chapter. It should be noted that I lack creativity in the name choosing department - I came up with the band name because I looked up "list of verbs" and the terms "fold" and "follow" were next to each other :)

On with the chapter! I hope if you take the time out to read this, that you enjoy it :)

**Show Me What I'm Looking For**

Chapter Three

-------------------

"So what type of song do you want to play?" Kelsi was sitting on her sofa at her apartment. At home was where she did her paying work, writing music. While Kelsi hardly saw herself to be in "high demand" at this point in her career, she was able to draw performer to her. Today she was meeting with the lead singer of an up-and-coming pop-rock group called "Fold Follow." Though the band was based inside California, they agreed to send a representative to meet with Kelsi after asking her to write a song for them. Even if they didn't really compose their own tracks, Kelsi always thought it was best to try to get a feel for the artist and their personality before writing something for them.

"You know I was thinking that maybe we could sing something that just builds up the entire song ," said the singer, named Josh. "Something sort of melancholic - but not too depressing - that just explodes at the ending and grows empowering. Something inspirational. Yeah."

"Okay," Kelsi said, scribbling down notes on what he had just said. "Do you have any other ideas?"

Josh shrugged. "I like meaningful music that can interpreted in different ways. You know, if you look past just the words, you'll find something really deep. Maybe something like a message or calling to someone or something."

Kelsi nodded, adding to her notes. The somewhat scruffy-looking though friendly young adult sitting on her sofa continued to ramble on about deep music and multi-dimensional lyrics as Kelsi began to contemplate the new song she was about to write. She drew a lot of her music from inner-experiences and whatever she was feeling like at the time. For example, after her mom died, a lot of her songs she wrote were very moody and depressing. Now would feel like a good time to write something melancholic, though the "explosion" may prove to be somewhat difficult.

Josh and Kelsi continued to go back-and-forth with ideas for quite a long time. While it seemed that Josh had just a very minimalistic idea of what he wanted lyrically, he knew exactly the style and type of music he wanted written. Kelsi sensed that this song might be challenging, but she was sort of excited. She hadn't written much music in a while, and considering all of the weirdness that had suddenly come into her life over the past coupe of days, a distraction would be nice. Kelsi used music not only as an art form but as a constant distraction. Whenever there was something bad going on in her life, she went to music. Actually, this was probably the reason why all of her songs seemed to reflect her life in some way.

"Well, I guess I gotta go." Josh looked up at a clock on Kelsi's wall. He was only in town for the day, he had flown in a few hours ago and had to leave to catch his flight home. Kelsi looked over at the clock to confirm his statement and nearly jumped. Time had gone by much faster talking to Josh than she had realized.

"Yeah, I guess so," she said, standing up. "So, when do you want your song done by?"

"Soon would be good so we can get it recorded, but don't worry about having to rush. Whenever is fine," he said vaguely.

"All right then. It was nice getting to meet you," Kelsi said, shaking hands with the singer.

"You too," he said, then making his way to the door. "Thanks Kelsi."

"No problem," she said, and the pair exchanged awkward smiled before he exited. As the door shut, Kelsi sighed. It was almost time for the meeting that Amy had rescheduled. Naturally, this was something that Kelsi was dreading. She sort of wanted to just say that she was too busy to do the job expected (and with a new song to hastily write, this wasn't exactly a lie), but she had already decided that she was going to do it. Martha was right, closure would be a good thing and this could sort of be therapeutic in a way. However, she really wished that there was some way that she didn't have to meet up with them today.

_If nothing else, that whole awkward situation should be good for songwriting_, Kelsi mused. Especially something sort of melancholic, which would be an easier thing to write at the moment than some cheerful pop piece or show tune. Kelsi's happiest songs came during happy periods of her life, her dramatic songs came from not-so-happy periods. Kelsi almost laughed as she thought about the whole collection of "love gone wrong" songs she wrote after things went south with Ryan. Later on, she sold them and they actually became some of her most popular songs, which was sort of embarrassing, because she had to pretend to all of her friends and family that they were completely fictitious.

Kelsi still had a little time before she had to go to the church. "I guess I can start writing," she said, walking over to her bedroom where she kept a small keyboard - harder to play on than a piano, but she had no choice. Living in an apartment meant she couldn't make too much noise, and keyboards were softer than regular pianos. Pulling a piece of paper out of the notebook that contained her scribblings from the meeting with Josh, she began write down some chords and ideas.

--

"You amaze me." Ryan was staring straight at his twin sister, Sharpay. She was possibly the only person who would be just mindlessly texting in such a situation. While she was usually the drama queen, in situations where overzealous behavior would be acceptable, she was perfectly nonchalant.

"Thanks, but I already knew," said replied without a drip of irony. Ryan couldn't help but roll his eyes at her comment.

"I just don't get how you're just so calm," he said. "It's like you don't even care."

"Obviously I care Ry, or else I wouldn't have flown in from California. Unlike you, I just don't feel the need to be constantly freaking out. It's _just _an appointment," she said.

"Who are you talking to?" he asked. Sharpay couldn't hide the smile that flashed quickly across her face.

"Zeke," she said.

"You two on again?" Ryan asked wearily. Ever since the end of high school, Sharpay had some weird on-again, off-again relationship with a former high school classmate of theirs named Zeke Baylor. It was just a pattern of theirs that they would get together and things would be great, break up, and then get back together again. Zeke was too enamored with Sharpay to stay away from her, and it seemed that Zeke was destined to be the only guy Sharpay would ever genuinely like.

"Yes, and this time for good," she said defensively. "He just moved to L.A. to start a bakery a couple months ago and we seriously just randomly bumped into each other a couple days ago," she said.

"You bumped into each other a couple days ago, and you're already back together?" Ryan inquired.

"Yeah, it was just so crazy. It's fate. It just has to be. We're going to be together forever," Sharpay said knowingly.

"You mean you're not going to run away every time you think things are getting serious?," Ryan asked. For some reason, Sharpay would always break things off as soon as they started to get really good. Ryan wasn't sure if she was afraid of a serious relationship or commitment, or maybe she even thought Zeke perhaps deserved better, but she would always back off.

"Nope!" Sharpay said. Ryan sighed.

"Whatever you say, Sis." Even if they were a confusing couple, there was no denying the fact that they were good for each other. She was sort of in constant need of attention, and he was completely fixated by her. He was an ability to soften Sharpay, which was something no one who knew the pair (especially in the days before they dated, when Zeke was just some obsessed fool) would ever understand.

"He's texting me because he's concerned," Sharpay added. "Unlike _your _girlfriend ... who is where, exactly?"

"I don't know," he admitted. Sharpay had taken an instant disliking to Amy. Well, it wasn't so much disliking Amy as a person, per se, but she disliked Amy as Ryan's girlfriend. This really surprised Ryan, because he was certain that they were going to be good friends. After all, they shared many of the same interests - musical theater, looking at themselves, shopping, et cetera. However, just after introducing Amy to the family, Sharpay pulled him aside and told you, _"Take it from me, you deserve a hell of a lot better than that."_

"Off planning your dream wedding?" she asked in a mocking manner. Ryan shrugged.

"We actually do have some stuff to do in just a bit," he noted, checking his watch. Sharpay, who seemed to disapprove of his marriage but insisted on being involved in the planning of the wedding, raised her eyebrows at Ryan.

"Just picking out church music," he explained. "Did I tell you who the church's piano player is?"

"No," Sharpay responded, looking down at her cell phone in her hands, typing out a text at an alarming rate.

"Kelsi."

"What?" Sharpay asked, entirely shocked. Her head darted up from her phone so quickly it hit the wall behind her. Ryan hid a laugh as she turned to face him. "As in Nielson?"

"Yeah," Ryan said. "Apparently, she plays the piano at the church. That's her job. I can't believe it, can you?"

"Oh no. You're not having Kelsi Nielson play the piano at your wedding, are you?" she asked. Ryan shook his head no.

"Don't worry, I'm going to tell her she doesn't have to," he said.

Sharpay threw her hands up in the air, scandalized by his response. "That's completely pointless. You know she'll still do it anyways."

"I doubt it," Ryan said. "We met up last week and things were pretty awkward."

"Wait, do you mean you and Kelsi alone, or you and Kelsi with Amy? Did you know she was going to be there? Why am I just finding out about all of this now? I don't know how you can on without telling me these things, we're twins, Ryan!" Sharpay asked. She was staring at Ryan intently, as though she positively needed to know everything. Ryan was beginning to find himself wishing he had just kept quiet on everything.

"I had no idea she was going to be there, and yes, I was with Amy," he said. Sharpay gave Ryan an exasperated look.

"Then of course it was awkward," Sharpay said. "She's rude to new people."

"I don't think so," said Ryan, though he had noticed her take a few swipes at Kelsi. However, he had convinced himself that they were unintentional. After all, she took regular swipes at him, and they couldn't be on purpose, right? Then again, Sharpay would know better than anyone else about people being rude on purpose or not.

"Yeah, well, love is blind ... or deaf, or something," Sharpay said. "Whatever, it doesn't matter. Honestly though, - since we're on the topic anyways - whatever happened between you and piano girl? Not to be critical, but you just sort of jumped in with Amy. It was really weird. Completely unlike you."

"Uhm ... we just grew apart, I guess," Ryan said. He didn't know the answer any better than Sharpay did. He suspected the only person who knew was Kelsi herself. "We didn't really talk for a while, and things just sorta went downhill."

You didn't talk for a while?" Sharpay asked in apparent disgust. "Well that was stupid of you to do," she said wisely.

"Oh, because you're the best person to get relationship advice from," Ryan replied sarcastically.

"Whatever," Sharpay said. "Seriously, even though she was sort of a freak and, like, _obsessed _with her piano, she wasn't half-bad for you. You're both weird."

"Thanks."

"No problem!" said Sharpay cheerfully, as though Ryan would take her calling him a 'weird' person and also 'stupid' for ending his previous relationship as compliments.

"So, what did you talk about?" she suddenly asked.

"Nothing," Ryan said. "She was gone for most of it. I tried to talk to her, but she didn't hear me." Ryan thought he would sound even more idiotic if he said '_she ran away_._'_

"Then you're not getting back together?" Sharpay asked, disappointed.

"I'm getting married, Shar. Besides, you don't even like Kelsi. Remember?"

"Yeah, but you're a lot better for each other. Anyways, I just thought it would be fun. Like one of those cheesy romantic comedies where the person you love is getting married, so the protagonist comes in at the last minute and stops the whole thing." Only Sharpay could possibly wish for life to be like a romantic comedy.

"I don't think romantic comedies are supposed to be like real life," Ryan said. "Besides, _I'm _the one getting married and I'm positive that Kelsi doesn't love me ... and I love Amy."

Sharpay shrugged. She personally would love life to feel like a romance movie - all of the drama going on, and then getting to make out with a hot guy at the end! But that was off the point. "You aren't going to have her play at your wedding though, right? You know what you're going to say to get her to not go?" She didn't give Ryan much time to reply, before continuing. "First, you've got to get to the church early, before your wonderful bride. Then, you're going to go up to her and tell her that you hired the best, most wonderful pianist in the world and that she would be tacky to have at your extravagant wedding."

"That would be a horrible thing to say!" Ryan said. "Don't you think it would hurt her feelings?"

"Exactly! Then she would quit!" Sharpay said. Ryan shook his head. "Ugh, you're too nice. Well, then you're only other option is to go all romantic comedy and tell her you love her."

"No," Ryan said automatically. He didn't love Kelsi ... or at least he didn't anymore. He _did_ love Kelsi at one point, strongly enough that he was certain they would be getting married eventually. But that was ages ago. He couldn't be in love with someone who didn't love him. Even when things with Sharpay were difficult (as they too frequently were) he knew that deep down, he loved her, and vice versa. He didn't love Kelsi ... or at least he didn't think he did, anyways.

Checking down at his watch, Ryan noted that it was nearing time for him to go to the church. "I have to go," he said, standing up out of the wooden chair he was situated in. Sharpay's face fell.

"You can't just leave me here by myself," she moaned. Sharpay grimaced as she gestured around at the hospital lobby they had been waiting in for some time while their dad was getting some tests and blood work done. Ryan sighed.

"Mom's here," he pointed out. "I'll come back after. You'll probably be done here before I'm finished at the church, anyways."

Sharpay gave Ryan a pleading look. He understood. While she was treating this like nothing on the outside (and it was, in truth, pretty much just an appointment) she was secretly upset. Sharpay wouldn't be the type to admit this, but it was clear. Though he had already gotten up and had a legitimate excuse to leave, he felt bad just leaving her alone. "Just five minutes," he muttered, sitting back down and picking up an outdated issue of _People Magazine _from a table across from them. Sharpay gave Ryan one of those brief, rare appreciative smiles and pulled out her cell phone to resume texting. _Just five minutes, _Ryan reminded himself.

--

"Maybe they're not coming," Kelsi said hopefully to herself. She pulled her cell phone out of her pants pocket and checked the time. 4:24. Only about two minutes from the last time she checked. Oh, well then they still had six minutes to come. Funny, she had sworn that almost half an hour had gone by from the last time she looked at her phone. She had gotten nowhere in her song after the lead singer had left. Feeling much more uninspired than she had anticipated, she basically stared at her keyboard and her blank piece of paper to write music on. When she got to the point where she was certain she was about to hit a groove and really start getting somewhere, she realized it was almost 4:30 in the afternoon, the time designated by Amy for them to meet. However, when she arrived at the church (albeit, a bit too early) she was alone.

She was sitting by herself for a good few minutes when she heard the door creak open. Kelsi closed her eyes and murmured under her breath, "Maybe it's just maintenance."

Ryan walked quickly up the rows of seats to the back of the piano. He had no idea of the time, only that staying the extra few minutes had probably made him late. Luckily, his mom emerged and said things were looking fine, though the tests weren't completely finished and the results would be in later. Ryan hastily said that this was good news, and hurried out. Sharpay had given him an idea with her telling him to arrive early before Amy. Not that he planned on telling her that she was tacky, but he wanted to talk to her. He assumed that if they were alone and she had no place to go, that then they could talk. Not that this wasn't a slightly nerve wrecking prospect - over the last two years, he wished for nothing more from Kelsi than just to be able to have a conversation with her, though now he was sort of freaked out - but it needed to be done. However, at this point he was probably running late behind Amy. He did realize that there was no noise in the whole area ... but even if Kelsi and Amy were together, what would they be talking about?

Sighing at the obvious sound of movement, Kelsi slid off of the bench and walked around to the front of the piano. Sure enough, it wasn't maintenance. Ryan slowed down to a steady walk and stopped awkwardly in front of Kelsi, who looked down at the floor upon his arriving close to her. Ryan paused. What was he supposed to say? He had been so worried that Amy had beaten him to the church, he hadn't thought of anything to say to Kelsi, making his "plan" pointless. The feeling was mutual, as Kelsi, staring at the granite flooring, also pondered if she was supposed to say anything to her ex-boyfriend.

After what felt like the longest time, Ryan blurted out, "Is Amy here?"

"What?" Kelsi asked, her head darting up. She looked taken aback by the sudden noise, but after a moment of apparent disorientation, she shook her head. "No, she isn't."

"Oh," said Ryan. "All right."

There was an uncomfortable silence, until Kelsi finally pressured herself into asking, "Do you have anything in mind? For the wedding."

"Uhm, not really," Ryan said. "I've been sort of ... preoccupied, so to speak."

"I can imagine," said Kelsi.

"Yeah.

After that, they both stared down at the floor, despite feeling an immense pressure to say something to each other. Maybe try to explain what had happened between them, but they couldn't think of anything. Kelsi had decided that she should treat Ryan and Amy as any other pair of clients, but what was she supposed to do? She also had a burning desire to tell Ryan that after just a few minutes with his future wife, she could tell she was horrible - and she certainly wouldn't tell this piece of information to just any random client. She had an obvious past connection to Ryan which was why things were so awkward. The past was sort of like the elephant in the room.

"So how have you been?" Ryan finally asked Kelsi. She glanced up and shrugged.

"Not bad," she said. "And yourself?"

"Good, good. I, uh, got a job on Broadway," Ryan said.

"So I heard," said Kelsi. "What play is it, again?"

"_Hairspray_," Ryan replied. "I'm sort of on a leave right now, for the wedding planning, but I think I might pursue other options. By the time we got the production to Broadway, I was put in the cast, but I think that when I go back to New York after all of this, I'll focus more on doing choreography and more behind-the-scenes work. Actually, I've been thinking that it would be fun to just choreograph a whole new play. I did some of the choreography on _Hairspray_, but I want to work on something other than a revival, you know? Maybe even write some music at some point. The stuff we did in high school, just getting to work on entirely new material, that was really cool."

"Yeah it was," Kelsi agreed. When they were in high school, they worked together on the school plays - Ryan choreographed, Kelsi composed. They made a great team.

"What about you?" Ryan asked. "You're working _here_?" There was the slightest emphasis on the word "here" as though Ryan couldn't believe that Kelsi, a Juilliard graduate with all signs of taking over Broadway, would have ended up playing wedding at the hometown church. It was a common reaction, which had begun to slightly irk Kelsi.

"Yes I am," she said defensively. "I happen to love it here."

"Well that's good," said Ryan with attempted enthusiasm, though he was clearly skeptical.

There was another painful silence for what could've been seconds or hours. Ryan swallowed and cut to the chase. "You know," he said softly, "you don't have to do this if you don't want to. We - Amy and me - can find someone else."

Kelsi gazed over at was hard to believe that at one point they were together, and now he was referring to Amy and himself as a "we." Moving past this thought, Kelsi brushed her hand in the air dismissively. "It's my job. I _want_ to do it," she lied.

Ryan gave Kelsi a look even more skeptical than the one he had flashed her a few moments prior. "Really?" he asked. Kelsi nodded.

"Yeah, of course."

Ryan let out a low whistle. "Wow Kelsi, you're pretty incredible."

Kelsi felt heat rise up in her face. "It's my job," she mumbled again, fully aware of her pink her cheeks were turning.

"Thanks then," he said. "You're the best piano player I've ever met, better than the people who worked on the show. It'll be great with you there."

"Thanks," she said, her attention suddenly diverted to the floor again. The fact that Ryan was being so friendly was actually making Kelsi embarrassed rather than comfortable.

"You know," Ryan said softly, tired of beating around the bush, "I really hope we can be friends."

Kelsi raised an eyebrow at Ryan. Friends? How could they, with all of their baggage, be legitimate friends? Kelsi considered a friend to be someone you could be yourself around, tell anything to. Around Ryan, Kelsi was a mumbling, blushing mess. If they wanted to be friends, they should be able to talk openly about the past, rather than trying to pretend nothing ever happened between the pair of them. It was obvious that they were skirting around uncomfortable topics, things both knew they should go over before either of them got married. They could never be friends.

"Yeah, me too," Kelsi said, carefully avoiding Ryan's eyes. Out of the corner of her own, she saw a slight smile form on Ryan's face. Ryan had wanted them to be friends, though convinced himself otherwise. However, Ryan had found himself proven wrong, they _could_ be friends.

They were suddenly distracted by the clinking of high heels against the floor. Both Ryan and Kelsi looked down towards the front of the church, where Amy was striding in down the front aisle. Kelsi almost giggled at her appearance. She looked more fit for walking down the runway at some fashion show rather down church. Which posed a question: who wore high heels when just going out to make plans for your wedding?

"Sorry I'm late," she said briskly. She offered no reason for her tardiness; she just sat down back at the piano bench like she had the last time they'd met. Kelsi tried her best to say something like, _"Excuse me, but that's _my_ bench." _Instead, she just stood and watched.

"Again, I have to leave early because I have a phone call to make." Amy bent down forward like she was sharing some incredible secret, and said, "It's my old high school. They have this monthly newsletter, and every month they interview a distinguished member of the alumni. I'm next month. It's pretty amazing, because I just graduated about six or seven years ago. Most of the people they talk to graduated a long time ago. Though landing a major role on Broadway straight out of school with such little experience is pretty incredible, isn't it?"

Clearly there was no greater honor than to be interviewed by your high school newsletter.

"Yeah," said Kelsi and Amy gave what was supposed to be a modest smile. "So, have you thought about anything you might want?"

Amy and Ryan glanced over at each other, as though waiting for each other to reply.

"Obviously we need 'The Wedding March,'" said Amy. This was evidently as far as they had gotten in planning - but Kelsi figured they lived too much of a busy, jet-setting life to worry about such things.

"Here, you can look at this book of songs," Kelsi offered, passing Amy a large binder full of sheet music. Amy looked daunted by the task of looking at the hundreds of songs.

"I'm just lost, so I guess I'll just sort of count on you to show me what I'm looking for as far as music goes, I trust your taste," Ryan murmured to Kelsi in a too-friendly manner that made her redden again.

"All right then, let's get to work if you have to leave soon," Kelsi said, gently brushing past Ryan as she was unsure of what she was supposed to say to him in reply to his comment.

Sitting down, Kelsi began to pull music out of her book and pass it around, allowing herself to become more and more unaware of the fact that she was with Ryan and not just any other guy. After all, they were "friends," right? In spite of the situation, Kelsi almost giggled. Regardless of what she really wanted and what Ryan had said, there just wasn't any way they could really be friends. Right?

-------------------

Haha, oh sigh. I fully admit Ryan's line of Kelsi "showing him what he's looking for" was horribly cheesy. But like Sharpay said - if this were real, it would be like some weird, cheesy romance movie. What's sad is how (somewhat) important that line is going to come. In the mean time, we'll just see if Ryan and Kelsi can actually be "friends."

Welllllll, thank you for reading!


	5. Chapter Four

Hiiiiiiiiiiiiii_! _Thanks to jenpen1027, krfan, rockyshadow, rkfollower and fallinrain for commenting on the last chapter! I really like/appreciate getting feedback, so thank you :)

I don't really know how I feel about this chapter. It took me a long time to write, because I didn't really like it ... and I'm still not sure if I do. It's a bit more filler-ish than my last chapter, so I guess I lied again :) Actually, it's my longest chapter, but I think it's because a lot of rambling. I've basically finished the next chapter (I worked before this one, because I liked it a lot better, ha ha) but I'm not sure when I'll get it out ... _technically_, I'm not really supposed to be on the computer until I get my driving permit. Honestly though, I'm already in drivers ed classes, and they're kind of scaring me out of ever wanting to drive anyways.

_Show Me What I'm Looking For _belongs to Carolina Liar. _HSM _belongs to Disney. Darn.

Well, I hope you like the next chapter!

**Show Me What I'm Looking For**

Chapter Four

-------------------

Sometimes, working under pressure was good for Kelsi. It often helped produce her best work.

This was not one of those times.

With all of the stuff going on in her life (namely her ex-boyfriend showing up in such a strange way), she expected lyrics to just pour out and a song would just materialize instantly. However, Kelsi had been staring at a blank piece of paper that was supposed to have a song it for the last half an hour. For some reason, she was finding it difficult to think of a song that is melancholic with an "explosion." She was in more of a mood for writing some upbeat pieces, which was unlike her during such weird situations. She struggled to understand why that was, because usually she wrote how she felt ... but she was unsure how she felt. It was hard to confront issues she didn't feel like confronting.

However, Kelsi had found herself in another tough situation, the reason she was working under pressure. Josh from Fold Follow had been pretty vague on when he needed a song, but the band just recently called and said that their label needed a track fast. So she was scrambling to get something together, but she couldn't think of anything. Needless to say, it was quite frustrating. She wondered if she could turn in some Broadway-style track, but that didn't seem to be Fold Follow's genre of choice. Laughing, she imagined the band performing _A Night To Remember_, a show tune about the senior prom she wrote.

"Just think of something," Kelsi muttered to herself. Writing a song with a mood that builds up throughout was far more difficult than she had imagined. Maybe the reason she couldn't think of anything to write inspired from the whole Ryan Evans thing was because the ending of that unusual saga was him getting married and her awkwardly playing the piano. Hardly a happy explosion.

Racking her brains, Kelsi tried to think of anything from her two encounters with Ryan that she could use in a sad song. _Anything_. She tried hard to remember their brief conversation, had they actually touched on the past? No, because the past sucks. All they talked about was his job on Broadway and her agreeing to play at the wedding. Hardly capable of being used as meaningful, multi-layered lyrics.

_"Wow Kelsi, you're pretty incredible."_ Ryan's words ran through Kelsi's head over and over as she mentally thought over their meeting where they became "friends." Ugh, just the thought of those words Ryan said made Kelsi feel strangely embarrassed. Ryan had that effect on her before their relationship, he had that effect on her after their relationship.

_"I'm just lost, so I guess I'll just sort of count on you to show me what I'm looking for as far as music goes, I trust your taste." _Another line from Ryan that made Kelsi cringe, yet it played on repeat in Kelsi's mind. Surely it was intended to be a sentence to make her feel better, but it was really just ... awkward. Shaking her head and chuckling softly, Kelsi mumbled to herself, "He trusts my taste music-wise, but I guess I can't 'show him what he's looking for' as far as other things go."

She resumed staring at her paper, when it struck her: "That's not such a bad title!" she exclaimed loudly, scribbling it down. Josh said that he liked songs that sounded like calls or messages to people, right? Well that certainly sounded like a calling to someone! Of course, she would have to think of another muse other than Ryan, because the title (other than being stolen from him) didn't really fit their situation. Well it could, but Kelsi wasn't going to be calling out to him - because the things she wanted to say or talk about, she couldn't say to Ryan. With her piece finally titled (something she usually saved to do after finishing writing) Kelsi felt ready to start thinking of some nice melody and she could tackle the lyrics.

"Okay ... a melancholic message... " She hit a key. "_Wait ... wait ... wait, I'm ... wrong? _That works," she said with a small shrug. She played a single chord with each word, creating a melody in the background. Often if she just thought of some nice words, a melody comes along. She always wrote her music on the piano, even though she would usually then move the song to a more guitar driven sound. The piano was just the easiest instrument for Kelsi to use when first creating something new, it was comfortable to her.

However, just as she started messing around with some more chords and words - all which she hastily wrote down on her paper - her cell phone rang. Sighing, (she was just about to get somewhere good!) she picked it up. Though she had been sort of upset to have her phone go off, she was glad to see it was Gabriella calling.

"Hi, I can't really talk right now, but what's up?" Kelsi said into the phone.

"Oh, okay, I was just calling to say that we're - Troy and I - coming to Albuquerque soon!"

"Really?" Kelsi asked. "Oh that's so exciting! We haven't seen each other in so long!"

"I know!" Gabriella agreed. "We still haven't decided on a place for the wedding, so we're going to look around at some locations everywhere. Right now I think we have it narrowed down to somewhere in Albquerque, because all of Troy's family is there, the ski resort where we met, or some place in California, because we both live there. Since my family is just spread out across the country, it's going to be a long trip for them no matter where we get married."

"Wow, I can't believe you're getting married. That's so exciting," Kelsi said. It ws beginning to feel like everyone was getting married ... though as sick as Kelsi was becoming of weddings, she was genuinely happy for Troy and Gabriella.

"I have to e-mail the picture of my dress, I think you'll love it," Gabriella said.

"Yeah," Kelsi said. "I bet it's great."

"Unfortunately, that's all I really have right now," Gabriella continued. "But we're not in any rush, there's something really fun about being engaged. You know, just the thought that you're about to commit yourself to someone for the rest of your life. Just being so close to being married."

Apart from being the most perfect couple, Troy and Gabriella were also the mushiest.

"Well, if you need a piano player," said Kelsi jokingly. Gabriella laughed.

"Thanks for offering, but you can't," she replied. "You _have _the be one of my bridesmaids!"

"Really?" asked Kelsi. "Oh, thank you!"

"You sound so shocked!" Gabriella said with a laugh.

"I am!" Kelsi said. "Wow, um, thanks."

"You're welcome. So, speaking of piano playing at weddings," said Gabriella tentatively, "how are things with Ryan?"

"Fine," Kelsi shrugged. "Well ... you can imagine."

"Ooh." Kelsi could almost hear Gabriella cringe over the phone. "You have to be almost done though." Oh how Kelsi wished this were true.

"No, not even close. I've never met a more indecisive couple in my life. They can't pick out anything," Kelsi said. "Actually, I'm meeting with them today for the third time, and all they have out is that 'Here Comes The Bride' song."

"That's better than nothing!" Gabriella offered.

"Ha, I guess," said Kelsi. "I just hope that we can just get one song picked out today. That's my hope. Though I don't even know how far we'll get, because they're already a little bit late ... "

"I'm sure you'll get something," said Gabriella. "It can't be_ that_ bad!"

"It's just so awkward," Kelsi said. "You know, when we first met up, Ryan was just all weird around me, and then he starting complimenting me like crazy!"

"That's nice," Gabriella said.

"It's still uncomfortable. He wants us to be friends," Kelsi said. "Which is completely impossible. Just too much going on in the past."

"I don't know. If Troy and I broke up, I would want us to remain friends," Gabriella said. "It's just sad to have someone be such a major part of your life, and then let them walk away. I tried doing that, but it didn't work."

As if Troy and Gabriella would ever break up.

"Maybe you're right," Kelsi replied. "I just wish that we could just finish this. Martha told me I should do it, to get some closure. Honestly, I'm just getting confused."

"What's his fiancee like? She's the girl from _Hairspray_, right?"

"Yeah. Have you ever seen _Hairspray_?" Kelsi asked.

"I've watched the movie version," Gabriella said.

"You know that bratty blonde girl in the movie? Amy plays her, and let's just say it must not have been a difficult acting job. She's pretty annoying," Kelsi said.

"Yeah, I'm pretty sure Sharpay said she didn't like her, either," replied Gabriella. Kelsi couldn't help but find this hard to believe. Amy and Sharpay had to be the best of friends. They were so much a like, after all!

"Sharpay and Amy are practically the exact same person," Kelsi said. "They're both arrogant, self-centered and controlling."

"Uh, hi Kelsi. Sorry I'm late."

Kelsi's head darted up from the piano she was looking at while talking. Ryan was standing right in front of her. Kelsi gasped in horror and said, "Bye, Gabriella."

_Oh no, you didn't just say that right in front of Ryan_, Kelsi thought, closing her eyes in a worthless hope that when she opened them, he'd be gone. Of all of the embarrassing things she had ever done in her life, this _had _to be the worst. She insulted both his sister and fiancée! How stupid of her! Was this the price to pay for saying rude things about other people.

She opened her eyes. He was still standing there.

"H-hi," she replied, much too late. "I, uh, I'm - "

"So how are things with Gabriella going?" Ryan asked, cutting across her attempted apology. "I haven't talked to her in a couple of years."

"They're ... they're good." Kelsi was trying to regain some of her composure. She was still in a mortified shock. She expected him to say something about what she had said, but if he heard her, (and how could he not?) he wasn't letting on. How weird that he wouldn't defend his own fiancée or twin! Though that was strange, (and if Kelsi were his sister or future wife, she would want him to be more defensive) Kelsi decided to try to pretend she said anything. "Troy and Gabriella are getting married."

"Really?" asked Ryan. "Well, that's actually not really a surprise, is it? Though I didn't hear about it."

"Fairly recent development," said Kelsi. "They don't really have anything done yet."

"Huh. Sounds me Amy and me," Ryan replied. "So what have you been up to today?"

"Not much, writing music," Kelsi answered.

"You still write?" Ryan asked. He had suspected Kelsi worked solely at the church.

"Not much," said Kelsi. "Just here and there ... for fun, really." She couldn't tell him that she wrote professionally, or else he'd find out what she had written and listen to all of her sappy break-up songs. No matter how bad it was having her friends listen to them, it would be a thousand times worse for the only person she had ever been in a serious relationship to hear them. He would automatically assume that they were about him!

"That's good!" said Ryan. "You know, you have a real talent for songwriting. You could become really successful in that sort of career field."

Oh, Ryan. Trying to subtlety tell her she should become a professional songwriter. Likely because he was concerned she wasn't fulfilling all she could in the church piano player business.

"Thanks, but I'm sure it's a tough business," Kelsi said, turning pink. Why was she always blushing around Ryan?! "I'm just an amateur."

"But I'm sure whatever you write is a hundred times better than all of the garbage that's so popular these days," said Ryan, smiling. Kelsi very much hoped he wasn't referring to any of the songs she wrote that were famous.

"Here, can I see that?," he asked, gesturing towards her incomplete sheet music. Kelsi passed the music to him, then felt another wave of embarrassment, as he must've read the title and realized she stole it from him. _I probably look like such an obsessed freak,_ Kelsi thought, scolding herself. However, if he realized that the song's name _Show Me What I'm Looking For _was stolen from him, he didn't let on. He looked over the music and walked around behind the piano. Without explanation - or asking Kelsi, who was sitting on the bench, to move - he hit the first chord.

"_Wait, I'm wrong,_" he sang, his eyes glancing back-and-forth at the music and the keys, "_Should've done better than this._"

He turned to Kelsi after playing the just two lines she had completed. "See? In just a couple words, you express so much emotion and regret. That gets the listener right inside the song fast. You have a gift."

"Wow, uh, thanks," Kelsi mumbled.

"I wish I could write as well as you, but I need some work," Ryan continued. "That, though, is great stuff."

How could Ryan be so complimentary of just eight words that she had struggled with to find, and wasn't even sure if they were going to be what she turned in? Regardless if she felt undeserving of the kindness, she softly uttered another thanks.

"Maybe you can help me," Kelsi said. "I can't think of anything that rhymes with 'this'."

"Uh ... diss, bliss, kiss, miss ... that's all I have," Ryan said, smiling.

"Hmm ... " Kelsi replayed the same line of music from above and muttered some lines under her breath. "_I'm know that with you I had bliss? _Ha, ha, nooo ... uh... _I'm finding things hard not to miss?_ Ew, no. See? I'm awful."

"Actually, I liked that direction," Ryan admitted. "How about ... _I'm finding things ... things? I'm finding thin - it! I'm finding _it _hard to ... miss ... resist? I'm finding it hard to resist_. Not exactly a rhyme, but there you go."

"_I'm finding it hard to resist,_" Kelsi repeated. A smile spread across her face. It was perfectly melancholic! "Thanks, that's really good!"

Ryan smiled, but hid the weird look he almost gave Kelsi. He knew songwriters were passionate, but he couldn't understand why she'd feel so delighted over finding a sentence for a song she was writing for fun.

"What should I do after that? Should I just go into the refrain? I need to start working on that if I want to finish this song," Kelsi said, more to herself than Ryan. "But what do I use to lead in?"

"How about you just say ... _so show me what I'm looking for_?" Ryan suggested with a small shrug.

"Yeah," said Kelsi nodding, "That works really well with that!" Kelsi was finding herself feeling less uncomfortable as she sat next to Ryan. Against her will, she was loosening up (though perhaps too much, as Ryan was steadily growing more confused with her excitement, a fact she was oblivious to). However, was it possibly evidence they could be friends? Things were already less awkward now than they had been when they last met.

"Good," said Ryan, though he couldn't understand why she was so pleased.

"The band should really like this, it's exactly what they wanted. A message," Kelsi said, quickly forgetting her statement that she only wrote for fun. Ryan raised an eyebrow at Kelsi.

"The band?" he asked. Kelsi slapped a hand over her mouth. How stupid! Now he'd probably look her up on Google or something and that would tell him all of the songs she'd written!

"Y-yeah, a hometown band who wanted a-s song," Kelsi lied quickly. In fact, it was much too quick. She was talking at about a mile-a-minute pace and stammering. Kelsi Nielson was not exactly known for her ability to bend the truth.

"Well, it's good for you to get you music out there," Ryan said, flashing another smile. Try as she might, Kelsi couldn't force one in return. Even if she now had a better idea of what direction to take her song, she felt bad. She was lying to Ryan, as well as loudly insulting his family right by him. Could she be more of an idiot around him? Kelsi had obviously been wrong just a few moments prior. If anything, her behavior was proving that hopes of a friendship (even if she was liking him helping her with music) were fruitless.

"So, uhm, have you and Amy thought of any music?" Kelsi asked, eager to switch the subject away from her music.

"Not really," Ryan said. "We were going to try and pick out some stuff before we came, but some other stuff came up, so we haven't really talked today ... "

Ryan's voice trailed off and he pulled his cell phone out of his pocket. "She's late," he muttered. That had been obvious. Ryan had been late, which he had acknowledged. Ryan pressed a few numbers on his phone and pressed it up to his face, getting up and walked past the piano as he did so. After a few moments, he shut it.

"No answer," he explained rather unnecessarily. "Man, this is the second time in a row!"

"It's fine," Kelsi insisted, seeing that Ryan was looking upset.

"No, it isn't," Ryan said distractedly. "She is," he consulted his phone again, "half and hour late. With no call."

Ryan was quickly going from being upbeat and playing the piano, to mad. Very much unlike him.

"I'm sorry that we keep doing this to you, Kelsi," Ryan said, seeming to have 'snapped out of it,' so to speak. "We come in late and then we don't do anything. It's just wasting your time. I'll have to talk to her when I get home."

"It's fine," Kelsi said. Ryan walked back over to the piano and leaned over the top of it.

"What have you been up to?' she asked feebly, out of desperation to think of something to talk about. If they were "friends," they should be talking, right?

"Nothing," he said. He'd been at his parent's house all day. Though it was hardly necessary as they had maids and butlers and several workers, but his mom insisted on him keeping her company before his dad got home from the hospital. Not the greatest of times, but whatever. Ryan was a nice son.

And that just about expired their conversational topics.

Ryan tried calling Amy a few more times to no answer. He paced back-and-forth around the back of the church. He checked his cell phone clock about a thousand times. No sign on Amy.

"You know, I think I'm gonna head and see if she's there," Ryan said after a lengthy silence.

"Oh, okay," said Kelsi. "Do you want to meet up again? I mean, to think of some more songs?"

Three meetings down, nothing down. Well, unless you count building something of a friendship with Ryan ... which she didn't really count work wise.

"Yeah, we'll call ou," he said, walking towards the door. He was about to leave, when he doubled back. "Do you mind if I borrow that song?" he asked.

"Oh, uhm, sure," Kelsi said, taken aback. "I just need it back ... soon-ish."

"Okay," said Ryan, with a slight grin. "I just really like this so far."

All three lines?

"Thanks, and bye," Kelsi said. Ryan gave Kelsi an awkward wave and left.

Even while things had gone well with Kelsi, he was mad. How could Amy just not show up? She was in such a rush to get married and was now trying to slow things down!

--

_One not-too-long drive later ..._

Though he had been pretty mad back at the church, Ryan had allowed himself to begin to panic over Amy not coming. He knew he shouldn't be so quick to assume she just didn't show up. For all he knew, she could have been driving to the church and got hit by a car and died! She could be stuck in some emergency! She could have a perfectly legitimate excuse for her absence. To make the assumption that she was just didn't show up was rude.

But when he opened the door to their hotel room, she was sitting on the sofa in the front area watching television.

"Hi Ryan," she said, without glancing over from whatever program she was watching. "I bought a movie. Do you mind?"

"Have you just been here all day?" Ryan asked, walking over to the sofa she was sitting on. "You've been watching movies when our wedding, the only reason we're in New Mexico, is right around the corner, and we have next to nothing planned?"

Amy smirked at Ryan. "Shouldn't I be the one freaking out about the wedding? You're acting like such a girl."

Ryan had dealt with people making snide remarks at his masculinity for the longest time, but there was something incredibly annoying about his fiancée making these sort of observations. However, that wasn't the real reason he was upset with Amy.

"I was at the church for an hour waiting for you," Ryan said. "Don't you know how rude it is for you to call someone and tell them you want to work with them, then just not show up?"

"Why were you at the church?" Amy asked. After staring at Ryan for a moment, a look of apparent realization seemed to hit her. "Oh. Right. Yeah, the piano girl. Well, I forgot."

Something seemed to indicate to Ryan that she had not forgotten, but he decided to go along with what she said, for arguments sake. However, this didn't mean that Ryan was going to let her off the hook as usual.

"How did you forget?" he asked. "You scheduled the meeting, you mentioned it just last night!"

"Maybe if you weren't out all day, I would remember," Amy said defensively. "I fell asleep after you left and I forgot. So what? What am I supposed to do here? I don't know anyone, and I can't do any wedding planning because everything in New Mexico sucks."

"'If I weren't out every day?'" Ryan repeated. "You do realize that I'm with my family, right?" Amy rolled her eyes, and looked back towards the movie she was watching. Ryan glanced over at it. Some couple kissing passionately. Typical romance drama. Waste of time and money, he determined, picking up the remote and switching it off.

"Hey!" said Amy, startled. "That cost ten dollars!"

"Yeah, but I'll be the one paying for it," Ryan reminded her. Amy shook her head.

"All of your money is really your parent's," she pointed out. "Plus, it'll be mine in just a while."

Ryan sighed. "Can we get back to the point?" he asked. "You can't just go around being so rude to people. The wedding is almost here, and all we have done is picking out the venue."

"Because everything in New Mexico sucks," Amy whined. "I told you, didn't I? Maybe if the wedding was in New York - "

"Then nobody would be able to make it," Ryan said. "You're not even trying to make an effort to look around at anything, because you're too determined to not like it here. You could find your dream dress, but you wouldn't buy it, because that would just be a sign of surrender, or something."

Though Ryan was speaking calmly, he was more upset with Amy than he could remember himself ever being. For him, this was yelling.

"I'm sorry I forgot about the stupid piano thing," Amy said in a most insincere voice. "Whatever. She shouldn't be mad, she gets paid anyways."

"It's not about that," Ryan said. "It's about making commitments and keeping them. Not being rude to people. I really think that if we're actually going to get married, you need to grow up."

"You sound like you're questioning whether we should get married or not," Amy said. "That would be making a commitment and not keeping it. I didn't ask you to propose to me."

"Yeah, you pretty much did," Ryan pointed out warily. "And I'm not ending the engagement, I'm just trying to talk to you - "

"It's that piano girl right?" Amy asked suddenly, cutting over his speech.

"What?" asked Ryan, clearly taken aback. "No, I - "

"Yeah, you were flirting with her the entire time we were there last," Amy said. "You were all like 'you have such _marvelous_ musical taste!'"

"I was being friendly," Ryan said, though he couldn't remember ever telling Kelsi how marvelous her music taste was. He did say he trusted her ability to pick out good music, but that was just being friendly. Wait, _was_ he flirting with her? Nah. "I had to be nice enough to outweigh how rude you are sometimes."

"I get it. I'm rude. You've said it a thousand times now," Amy said, rolling his eyes at Ryan. "What I can't believe is that I'm gonna get dumped for the freaking piano player in some middle of nowhere church."

"I just said I'm not ending the engagement, I just want to talk to you," Ryan said.

"It's obvious you two were like, sleeping together in college, or something," Amy said in a scathing voice. Ryan felt heat rise up in his face at this comment - then when he realized that he was blushing, he reddened even further. What was Amy talking about?

"No, we've never - "

"Well something was going on back then." She said this as though she knew it to be fact, something Ryan had suspected. Amy was staring sharply at Ryan, who groaned.

"We dated - "

"For how long?" Amy interrupted. Ryan hesitated.

"Three, four years," he said. Amy's jaw dropped at Ryan, who flinched slightly.

"_FOUR YEARS? _And you never told me?" Amy looked more angry than Ryan had ever seen her - and he seen her be angry a lot (though usually only over small things, like someone moving around her costumes backstage during _Hairspray_). Truth be told, Ryan was beginning to become somewhat intimidated by her, because he knew she was really unpleasant to be around when she was mad.

"I figured you wouldn't care," Ryan said, standing up off of the sofa and moving into the bedroom area. He was trying to avoid an argument, and he hoped Amy would stay in the TV area and turn her movie back on. However, she followed close behind him.

"The vibe I got from her was some random hook-up. Not a girl you were with the entire time you were in college! Four years is double the amount of time we've been together!" Amy's voice had raised to a shouting level, despite the fact that Ryan was just a few feet away from her..

"Please stop yelling, people will call the front desk," Ryan said softly.

"I'm only yelling because my fiancé, the person I'm supposed to spend the rest of my life with, is a _liar_!" Amy said in a shrilly voice.

"I didn't lie to you, I just never told you," Ryan said. As dumb a defense as that was, it was true.

"You know Ryan, I'm beginning to think that maybe this wedding is a mistake," Amy said in a cold voice.

"Yeah, maybe it is," Ryan agreed. Ryan wasn't really being serious, but again, Amy's jaw dropped. Clearly, she had been expecting him to disagree with her, or tell her it was no mistake and he loved her. Usually, she wanted Ryan to agree with everything she said. This was not one of those times.

"Then why are you even here?" she demanded. Ryan didn't know if she meant that in the physical (he was right next to her) or emotional (he was engaged to her) sense. He wasn't sure he knew the answer to either at the moment.

"If you want me to leave, I can," he offered, sighing. "This is a hotel. I can go check out another room for the night."

"Fine," Amy said. However, when he stood up and walked out of the room, her face was full of surprise. Again, she had not anticipated Ryan actually leaving. This time, though, she didn't follow him or call anything back to him. Ryan just walked down the hallway to the elevator and went to the lobby. He booked another room and went up to it. He was finally seeing the advantages of living in a hotel.

Ryan trudged to the bed in his new room, which was exactly identical to the one he'd just walked out of, and sat down. He knew that renting the room was a waste of money, but it was sort of worth it to be away from his slightly crazy fiancée. Even so, he was quickly starting to regret the fight he had with Amy. If they were going to get married, they should be trying hard to_ not_ fight ... but things were more tense with her than usual. Actually, people preparing to be married should be even happier than they are before their engagements, right? Sure there is probably some more stress, but no doubt you're getting along well. At least, this is what Ryan figured.

He also sort of knew why things weren't going so well with Amy recently ... not that things were ever perfect, but better, anyways. New Mexico. She hated it so much, because it wasn't just what she wanted. She wanted some fancy dream wedding. She did not dream of getting married in New Mexico when she was younger. From what Ryan understood, she dreamed of some fabulous wedding with horses and carriages and whatnot. As she had said, Albuquerque was (to her) a barren waste land. But she would need to grow up, Ryan decided, because a marriage requires compromise ... something neither were really good at doing.

Though it added a strain, maybe it was good for them to have come to New Mexico. Give them a chance to see each other in such a manner. Maybe _he_ should end the engagement.

_No, don't be stupid_, Ryan thought. End the engagement because of one stupid fight? That was an incredibly dumb idea. They would be leaving New Mexico soon enough, and that would be the end of that.

Of course, Ryan had been with Amy in other places other than New Mexico, and it wasn't like a marriage would be more likely to survive there than anywhere else. Ryan sighed. This notion contradicted his entire thought that their only problem was New Mexico. They had hardly fought until they got to Albuquerque, though - of course, this was also the first time they had ever _officially_ "lived together." However, truth be told, they had a lot of problems; they had just ignored them all. Being in close confinements with someone at all times makes them more obvious.

The notion that Ryan was dumping Amy for Kelsi, though? Ridiculous! Kelsi was little more than an acquaintance at the moment, a kind-of friend. He was, undeniably, looking for more in their relationship: a good, lasting friendship. Not a girlfriend, or hook-up, or anything. Ever since things with him and Kelsi fell apart, he lost contact with a lot of his old high school friends. He was allowed to want to have some different friends, right? He had missed Kelsi ... but he wasn't flirting with her. He was being nice. If he _was_ flirting with her, it was entirely unintentional!

What Ryan realized what was truly sad was that he was twenty-four years old, engaged to be married, and he felt like he was in junior high school.

While part of him wanted to go down to Amy's room and apologize, another part of him wanted to just move into his new room. Thinking hard of something to do, he remembered the song he's stuck in his pocket. Writing would be a good thing to do, Ryan decided. It was an outlet. He walked over to a desk and pulled the paper out, and began to think about some lyrics or verses. Picking up a pen that had the hotel logo printed on it, he began to scribble down words and phrases, something which became steadily easier to do. Slowly, - and against his will - the song was beginning to shape something like a summary of the situation, but a take on it that was too personal for him to even admit to himself, because the lyrics were sort of unhappy. As he read the lines over, he was shocked at the direction they were taking, but that was the power of writing: sometimes you can't control what you write.

Though, he laughed in spite of himself when he realized how bad the song must be - because good writers write about what they know ... and all Ryan knew was that he nothing at all.


	6. Chapter Five

Hi again! First, a big thank you to jenpen1027, digigirl02, and krfan for reviewing chapter four! Also, a thnaks to anybody who added this to their reviews since the last update!

I still don't own anything :(

Please enjoy :) Here is CHAPTER 5!

**Show Me What I'm Looking For**

Chapter Five

-------------

"I just can't believe she would do this. _Again_."

It was becoming something of a routine. Kelsi and the future Mr. and Mrs. Evans would schedule a date to meet and pick out all of their music. Mr. Evans would come. Ms. Lyons/Mrs. Evans-to-be would be late and her fiancé would not know where she had gone. This was now the third time Amy was late for meeting up with them ... and it was getting old.

"It's fine," Kelsi mumbled, her now repetitive response to Ryan's anger with his girlfriend.

The pair had been sitting in the church by themselves for the last forty-five minutes. There wasn't much going on in the way of conversation, but Kelsi guessed that this was to be sort of expected at this point. They had exchanged awkwardly breathless greetings, and asked each other how they were doing. They both gave the obligatory "Fine" response. Ryan quickly assured Kelsi that Amy had promised she was coming this time. However, after a lengthy wait, Ryan's patience was visibly wearing thin ... and Ryan was a patient guy.

"Does it take any other couples four meetings to pick out their music?" Ryan asked. He had the slightest hint of a sad smile on his face.

"It takes people a really long time," Kelsi replied. "It's important, right?"

"Well clearly not_ that_ important to Amy," was Ryan's response. "But if I picked out the music right now, she'd get upset. She's basically in control of everything, but she isn't doing anything."

"Oh." Kelsi couldn't think of a more fitting answer.

Ryan wasn't sure where things with him and Amy were at the moment. He went back to the hotel room he was staying in with Amy after one night, and that was that. They didn't adress their argument, they acted liked it never happened. Of course, the atmosphere grew increasingly uncomfortable, but Ryan would rather act like nothing happened than have another fight. Meanwhile, he was continuing work on Kelsi's song for that band and it was becoming disturbingly emotional. So much so, that he decided to put it on something of a hiatus - he wasn't really a songwriter anyways. He was determined to finish it eventually, though, because Kelsi seemed that she really needed it done.

"I'm going to call her," Ryan said, pulling his cell phone out and punching in a few numbers. He held the phone up to his ear and Kelsi could distantly make out ringing. After a few moments, Kelsi assumed that Amy wasn't going to answer, but then the ringing stopped and she could make out something that sounded like mumbling. Even Ryan looked surprised that she answered.

"Where are you?" he asked. He didn't sound harsh, almost just pleasantly curious.

"Bridal shop," he replied. "Interesting. Didn't you remember we were supposed to meet at the church today?"

"I reminded you yesterday," Ryan sighed.

"Well can't you come over here now?" he asked. Though Kelsi couldn't tell what Amy was saying, it was enough to get the gist of the conversation. It was also enough to make her feel out-of-place and bad or listening in.

"Wait - where are you?"

"_New York City_?"

Kelsi's head darted down at the floor and she tried to act like she couldn't hear him. Though Ryan's voice was steadily rising, making this rather difficult.

"You went to New York City ... and didn't tell me?"

" _....._ "

"That's all the way across the entire country!"

"_....._"

"No, that is a big deal, Amy."

"_....._"

"I'm sure you could find something here."

"_....._"

"Then why couldn't you wait?"

"_....._"

The wish Kelsi made to be invisible the first time Amy and Ryan showed up at church was quickly returning. Kelsi didn't know if Ryan had forgotten that she was in the same room as him, but he was continuing on - not that his anger was unjustified, it just made Kelsi feel weird.

"I've been waiting here - with Kelsi - for the last forty-five minutes. Maybe if you were here and not out looking at dresses, you'd feel the same way!"

Oh. _Guess he hadn't forgotten I had here,_ Kelsi noted.

"_....._"

"My reasons for being out all day are far more legitimate than yours ... and I'm sorry if you get bored, but you don't want to come along with me."

"_....._"

Again, Kelsi didn't know what Amy said, but Ryan laughed darkly in a manner most unlike him.

"No, no. See, last time I was upset. Now, I'm pissed."

Kelsi's eyes widened at the floor. Ryan was never mad, and hearing him say anything that could be labeled as vulgarity was really, really unusual. Though his voice was calm, (albeit growing louder) Kelsi suddenly understood that Ryan must be pretty mad.

"Okay. We'll talk about this later."

Ryan flipped the phone shut and walked over to Kelsi behind the piano.

"Two fights in one week, we must be on a roll!" he said sarcastically. However, his tone suddenly softened and he looked apologetic. "I'm sorry ... again."

"It's okay ... again," said Kelsi.

"I just don't think she gets it," Ryan said. "I really think she believes that if she holds off the wedding long enough and says enough about how much she hates it here, then I'll move the wedding to New York. I've told her a hundred times, if I want my family at the wedding, I can't move it."

_What am I supposed to say?_ Kelsi wondered, searching her brain for some reply. It wasn't necessary, however, as Ryan continued on talking.

"I mean, she's my fiancee, but she can be really selfish sometimes. My dad probably can't even travel, but she's complaining about _this_?"

Kelsi swallowed. She suddenly understood why Ryan would want to have the wedding in the place he hadn't been in two years. Was having sick parents the only thing that can bring people home?

"It's just ... frustrating," Ryan concluded. His voice was strangely hollow and it shook ever-so-slightly on 'frustrated.' Ryan looked embarrassed, a feeling shared by Kelsi. Though something about Ryan looking so embarrassed brought back a memory Kelsi had basically thrown away.

_"You okay?"_

_Kelsi, who was sitting on her bed, surrounded by a mountain of clothing, was feeling very much not okay. Though she thought she had been doing a good job of hiding any clues of her being upset, when her boyfriend Ryan stepped inside of her dorm room, he immediately sensed- without her having said a word or anything - that she was sad. _

_"My grandma died," Kelsi explained without answer his question, he undoubtedly knew she wasn't 'okay.' "And now I have to sort out all of my clothing and find a quick way home and - "_

_"You can use my family's plane if you want," Ryan offered. "It can pick you up today if you want to get home fast."_

_Kelsi gave what she hoped looked like an appreciative smile._

_"And ... I'm sorry, Kels," he added on sincerely. Neatly shoving a pile of clothing on Kelsi's bed, Ryan sat down next to her._

_"It's okay," Kelsi whispered in a nearly inaudible voice._

_"Do you want me to come home with you?" Ryan asked. Kelsi shook her head._

_"No, I'll be fine," Kelsi said. _

_"If you're sure," Ryan said. He wrapped his arm around Kelsi's shoulder and sighed. "I can get you anything?" he asked._

_"No, no, I'm fine," Kelsi insisted. He nodded, but his look indicated he knew she wasn't fine. Without his asking her to (and he wouldn't have done so), she explained herself._

_"It's just ... " Kelsi continued, "it's just weird that ... this will be the first time I'll go home, and she won't be there." Kelsi felt her eyes burn and her cheeks redden. "Sorry," she mumbled again. "Sort of embarrassing ... "_

_"There's nothing embarrassing about grief," Ryan said softly. "It's a part of life ... everyone has or will experience it. It's unfortunate, but we all will face it. Please - especially around me - don't feel any need to be embarrassed."_

Ryan was definitely not taking his own advice in this circumstance. He looked a strange combination embarrassed, upset, mad ... and according to him, he was pissed off.

"You don't need to feel ... embarrassed," Kelsi said in a strangely strangled voice. Ryan gave her a look, a look that said he remembered the conversation Kelsi was thinking about. He chuckled softly and nodded in agreement.

"Yeah, you're right," he said. "You're completely right, Kelsi! ... So, do you wanna go out?"

"What?" Kelsi asked, frozen. "What do you mean?"

"Clearly, we're wasting our time around here. We should go out and get some dinner, or something," Ryan said. "We're friends, right?"

"Um ... yeah?" Kelsi said. They were something, anyways. But she didn't know why that meant they had to go out.

"Yeah, let's go out," Ryan decided. He walked out to the parking lot, and a confused Kelsi followed.

"Here, we can use my car," he said, indicating the same expensive looking car she had noticed earlier. Kelsi agreed and sat down inside. It carried that good, new car smell and was very clean. The interior was as fancy looking as he outside. It was a nice car. In fact, it almost seemed too nice a car for Ryan, who once drove around in a vespa until having to grow used to more New Yorker means of transportation.

"What do you want to do?" Ryan asked. "I mean ... what exactly do friends do?"

It was a ridiculous sounding question, one that Kelsi didn't know the answer to.

"Uhm ... well you said eat ... we can go to the movies - "

"Great!" said Ryan, pulling out of the parking lot. "Good idea. We can go to the movies, then to dinner."

Well that sounded an awful lot like a date to Kelsi, who hesitated. It was strange enough that Ryan insisted on their friendship, now he was trying to act on his idea that they be normal friends.

The movie theater was just a few blocks away from the church, which meant there was little time for forced interaction between the pair. She was beginning to be happy they decided to go to a movie, because then they wouldn't have to talk. Just stare ahead and eat popcorn. But what would they talk about at dinner? Maybe, they would eat enough at the theater and they wouldn't need to go get dinner, they could just say goodnight after the movies! It was a fool-proof plan, really.

"What movie times are coming up?" Ryan approached the front desk, and a bored looking teenager consulted a list of films.

"The only movies about to start are _The Gore House_ and _The Runaway Aliens,_" she replied. Kelsi swallowed. Not the best selection. From what she could tell from the television promos, _The Runaway Aliens _was an animated movie about a group of aliens who run away from their planet to Earth. It wasn't quite what two twenty-four year olds would go willingly see. However, _The Gore House _was a horror film ... and Kelsi hated scary movies. Maybe it was somewhat pathetic sounding, because she knew they weren't real, but she disliked them. Passionately. But there was no way Ryan was going to go see a movie about a group of alien kids! Why did she ever recommend going to the movies?

"Uh ... two tickets for the alien movie_,_ please," Ryan requested after casting a sideways look at Kelsi. He didn't know if she was still terrified of scary movies, but he decided not to chance it. Besides, a movie about aliens had to be somewhat enjoyable, right?

"Here you go." The ticket lady didn't hide her smirk as she passed Ryan two tickets in exchange for money.

"This film probably isn't too long and we don't want to be stuffed at dinner," Ryan said. "What do you say? Bypass the popcorn?"

"O-okay," said Kelsi. Darn it. There went her brilliant plan to avoid future awkwardness. Oh well, she would just have to think of conversation ideas during the movie.

--

"That was an interesting movie," Ryan said when they got into his car.

The core audience at 5:30 p.m. showing of _The Runaways_ was predictably young. There were a few adults in the theatre with their kids, but they were all dozing off as soon as the previews started. Other than young children and their parental units, the only other attendees were a teenaged couple sitting in front of Ryan and Kelsi who were kissing the entire time. As if things weren't uncomfortable enough! Though Kelsi couldn't really hear the movie over the giggly children, she picked up the basic plot. There were a group of kid aliens, who were misunderstood because they didn't want to work on Mars like their parents. So, they decided to travel to Earth. Bathroom humor ensues throughout.

"Yeah, pretty strange," Kelsi agreed. Even though it was odd, it was rather quick and not frightening, so Kelsi approved.

"Where do you want to go to dinner?" Ryan asked.

"Whatever you want is fine," she shrugged. After a short drive, Ryan pulled into the parking lot of some ritzy looking restaurant.

"I just knew this place was close," Ryan explained. "It's seven o'clock, but since it's a weeknight, we should be able to get it. They're pretty fast here."

Kelsi hadn't been planning on going out to dinner at some fancy place, so, needless to say, she wasn't dressed for some fancy place. Actually, she had looked fairly presentable earlier in the day when she played at the church in the morning, but somewhere in between then and meeting Ryan, she had changed into sweats. Not that Ryan was dressed up either (he was wearing khakis and a polo shirt, very casual for him), but he looked more appropriate for the setting. Ryan looked at her glancing nervously at his outfit, and he waved his hand dismissively.

"Don't worry, it's not that nice here," he said.

Oh, was he wrong.

The moment the pair walked in, it was like the air was sucked out of the building. Nicely clad patrons and waiters looked over at them in apparent horror. Kelsi felt herself blush more than she had in a while, (which was saying something, because nearly every time she spoke to Ryan, she turned pink) but Ryan took it completely in stride.

"Huh! What's funny is that you look a hundred times better than everyone here," Ryan whispered under his breath jokingly. Though Kelsi was sure he was lying, at least this could provide something to talk about until the salad arrived - she hadn't been able to think of any good ideas for conversation during the movie. After waiting in line for a few minutes, the feeling of everyone's eyes on her soon growing old, Ryan and Kelsi reached the front of the line directing people to tables. A maitre de, who was gawking at their attire, approached them.

"How many?" he asked, as he surveyed both of them up-and-down.

"Two, please," said Ryan, and he brisked him off to a table. After politely thanking the waiter, Kelsi began to look over the menu. Like every time she went to a new restaurant, she was completely lost.

"Can you just order for me?" she asked.

"All right," Ryan said. Conveniently, a waiter approached their table. They _were _fast.

"Can I start you off with something to drink?" he asked.

To Kelsi's surprise, Ryan checked the wine menu. "What would you recommend?" Ryan asked, indicating the paper.

"I would personally recommend the cuvée de prestige," he replied.

"That sounds good," Ryan said, smiling. "Two, please?" he asked, gesturing towards Kelsi. The waiter nodded.

"Uh, Ryan, I don't really drink," Kelsi said as the waiter left to fetch their prestiges, or whatever they were called.

"Yeah, me either," Ryan said. "But tonight we're celebrating."

Celebrating what? Having past relationships shoved in your face under weird circumstances? Fighting with your fiancee who left to travel across the country without telling you, while your ex-girlfriend is right next to you? Neither seemed exactly like things to celebrate, but Ryan was smiling goofily at Kelsi across the table.

"Thanks," Kelsi muttered when the waiter promptly returned with the drinks. When he walked away, Ryan raised his glass in a way to initiate a toast.

"A toast ... to new friends," Ryan said, and he clinked his glass against Kelsi's. "Who are actually old friends, too," he added thoughtfully after taking a sip.

Like Kelsi said, she wasn't much of a drinker of any type of alcohol. Nevertheless, she felt bad not trying it, because Ryan bought it and she assumed it was probably expensive. She swallowed a small taste of the ember colored fluid. It seemed to have something of an acquired taste. Not yet her favorite.

Ryan must have noticed, because when the waiter walked past them again, he asked, "Can I please have two Cokes?"

---

"Who do you think will be the first to have kids?"

It was nearly three hours later. Ryan and Kelsi were still sitting in the restaraunt talking. Though they had very little to talk about at first - they expired the topic of how out-of-place they looked quicker than Kelsi had anticipated - but Ryan (who had been out of contact with everyone from East High, minus Sharpay, of course) asked how everybody from high school was doing. After they started talking about this, their conversation had begun to flow a lot more easily. Rather than a former couple who could hardly look each other in the eyes, they were behaving like old friends, reminiscing over old memories. High school was easy to talk about, because it was a really good time ... plus, they weren't a couple yet, so things weren't uncomfortable and they had no issues to skirt around, something they were becoming so good at. They had finished eating over an hour earlier and Ryan had paid the bill, but they continued to talk. They had recently moved past what happened in high school, and had moved towards the future: they were making predictions for everyone in their old gang.

"Troy and Gabriella," Ryan replied. "That's so obvious. I bet they'll have a thousand kids as soon as they get married. Who do you think?"

"I don't know," Kelsi said. "They aren't engaged or anything, but I bet that if Martha and Jason got married they'd have kids pretty fast. What about you? You're getting married first, do you want kids?" This was the first time all dinner that either of them had addressed the topic of Ryan's impending nuptials - it was one of those topics they were happily ignoring. But Kelsi couldn't help but be curious of the answer.

Ryan hesitated. "I do want kids, but not right now. I still think I'm a little too young and not mature enough to be having children yet. I definitely don't think Amy would be ready to have a baby right now. I don't really think I'm going to actively pursue having children, I guess I'm just going to let whatever happens happen. That said, I hope nothing happens for at least a few years, because now just wouldn't be a good time. I bet I'll be the last to have any kids."

"You don't think you're mature, but you're getting married?" Kelsi asked, raising an eyebrow.

"I don't think I'm mature enough to be responsible for another person, but I do think I'm mature enough to start a life with another person," Ryan explained in a way that made little sense to Kelsi. "Now whether Amy is mature enough to be married is another question," Ryan continued warily. Kelsi tried to force herself to say something, like _"If you're having doubts, getting married is a dumb idea," _but instead she just nodded. Always the observer.

"Besides ... do you really think I'd be a good dad?" Ryan asked. It was intended as a funny statement, but there was something strange to the question. Ryan could possibly be a dad one day ... with Amy. Somehow, this thought was worse than the idea of them getting married. If they got married, they could always get a divorce ... not that Kelsi would ever want Ryan to get a divorce! No, she wanted him to stay with whoever he married forever, because clearly that's what he'd have in mind when saying vows to whoever he marries. But, there was that option. If they had kids together, they would be connected together for the rest of their lives. _Oh what does it matter, Kelsi! _she asked herself. _He's getting married soon anyways!_

Pushing aside her strange internal battle, Kelsi honestly answered his question, even if he wasn't being serious. "I bet you'd be a great dad."

"What about you?" Ryan suddenly asked. "Do you want kids?"

"Since I'm not even dating, I don't think anything amongst those lines will be happening for a while," Kelsi said with a sigh.

"Why aren't you dating anyone, Kelsi?" Ryan asked, before shaking his head in a way too say she didn't have to answer. That was probably too personal.

"I don't really know any guys in New Mexico ... expect for Jason, but, you know, he's going out with Martha. Plus I'm not too interested in dating right now," Kelsi said. "I've been busy lately."

Ryan nodded and tried to hide his slight smile.

"Excuse me, but if you're not going to buy anything, we highly suggest you exit so we can give your table to someone else," the waiter, who'd suddenly appeared and was standing behind them, said in humorously snooty manner. Like school children, Ryan and Kelsi glanced over at each other and giggled.

"All right, Sir," Ryan said, standing up. "I'm sorry to keep your customers waiting."

The waiter gave him a disapproving look, and Ryan and Kelsi hurried out. When they reached the parking lot, they burst into laughter.

"He was hardly so rude when I was buying their most expensive champagne they have," Ryan said, shaking his head.

"I know, right?" Kelsi asked, still giggling. "Wait a second," she said, suddenly turning embarrassed. "That was the most expensive champagne there?

"Why do you think he suggested it?" Ryan asked, laughing.

Kelsi realized it must be pricey, but the most expensive drink in the entire place? She had acted completely impolite! "Oh wow, I'm sorry, I should've tried some more - "

"Don't worry about it," said Ryan dismissively. "Tastes crummy anyways."

Kelsi smiled again. Despite her reservations and the awkward start, she had actually enjoyed the evening.

"Can you just drop me off at the church?" Kelsi asked. "My car's still there."

Ryan gave Kelsi an alarmed look.

"Oh no, Kelsi," he said, shaking his head. "The evening has just begun."

He started to head back to his car and Kelsi watched, confused. Just begun? They had been together four in the afternoon and it was now ten in the evening. They had already mulled around with each other at church for an hour, seen a movie, gone to dinner - they had practically had a first date, or something! Ryan noticed Kelsi wasn't following him, so he turned back, and grabbed her arm in a joking manner, dragging her alongside him.

"I guess I'll have to kidnap you," he said, grinning. "But trust me - you'll be glad you didn't go to bed early."

"Early?" asked Kelsi. "It's ten o'clock!"

"Thanks, exactly my point," said Ryan. "That's not late at all!"

"I have to go to church every morning!" Kelsi insisted as they reached Ryan's car. Ryan let go of his grip on Kelsi, unlocked the doors and climbed in the front seat. Confused, Kelsi sat in the passanger side.

"I promise you, if you're too tired to go to the church in the morning, I will go and play piano for you," Ryan offered. "There. Now you have no excuse."

"What about Amy?" Kelsi asked desperately. "Won't she be mad?"

"Personally, I don't think she should have any reason to be upset with me right now," Ryan said. "Besides, I'm allowed to have friends, right?"

"Yeah ... " said Kelsi slowly, who could feel where his palm had touched her arm burn slightly. "I guess ... "

"Then don't worry, all right? This'll be fun," Ryan said in an assuring manner.

"Where are we going anyways?" Kelsi asked, slumping against her seat in defeat.

"No idea," Ryan replied, pulling out of the parking lot and up the street.

--

"What are we doing here?" Kelsi asked, looking up at the large, brick building they had pulled up to. Ryan shrugged.

"I don't know, I just sort of felt a pull back to my roots, so to speak," he replied. "I feel like I've been pretty much everywhere back home, except for here."

Ryan stepped outside, then walked around to Kelsi's said of the car. He opened the door for her and she slid outside.

"What are we doing? Are we going to break in?" she asked, her eyes widened. Ryan chuckled and shook his head.

"No, we're just going to walk inside and look around," he said. Kelsi froze. This sounded like a bad idea to her.

"It's probably locked," she mumbled.

"Nah, when my sister worked here, she said that it was open pretty late because of the night janitor," said Ryan. "And if even if he's not here, it's not that late, there's probably sports or play practice or something going on still."

Kelsi hadn't stepped foot inside of East High School since the day she graduated. She wasn't sure why she had never dropped in, having lived in Albuquerque for two years now. But high school just seemed so far away, so disconnected from where she was in her life now. Sure some of her closest friends were people she went to high school with, but it just seemed like a closed chapter she never felt like reopening - even if she did miss some things about high school, like the teachers and whatnot. Now, six years post-high school and it being the middle of the night with her ex-boyfriend, she wasn't sure it was time to reopen said chapter just yet.

"What's the worst thing that could happen?" Ryan asked Kelsi. "Other than we could get arrested, I guess."

"I don't know," Kelsi mumbled.

Kelsi couldn't help but wonder why was Ryan being so ... so - for lack of better term - _rebellious _all of a sudden? Saying "bad" words? Kind-of drinking? Dragging his ex-girlfriend along with him as he risked being arrested to break into his old school? Not like him very much. Kelsi wasn't sure if he was trying to do this as some way to get some sort of revenge on Amy, or if he was just trying to have an interesting time before he got married. Nevertheless, Kelsi wasn't sure why she was brought along into this, but that was apparently the price to pay for moving home ... but she really, really didn't want to be put in jail. _Wouldn't that be interesting to try to explain to the church!_ Kelsi thought.

"I'm just kidding," Ryan said. "We won't be arrested ... and if we are, my parents know all of the cops in Albuquerque. We'll be fine."

"Oh I'm so reassured," said Kelsi sarcastically, who hadn't taken Ryan's comment about knowing all of the officers in Albuquerque as lightly as he had desired.

"I'm just kidding!" he said again, defensively this time. "I swear - and you can make some sort of deal with me if you want - that we will not be arrested. Okay? I just thought it would be fun to look around."

"All right." Kelsi surrendered. Something about Ryan's confidence and smile gave her a strange reassurance that things would work out fine. "This should be fun, I guess."

"Yeah!" said Ryan enthusiastically, who reached out to Kelsi for a high-five, a gesture which she awkwardly returned. "That's the spirit!"

"You know, I can't help but think that this will end up being a good example of the bad effects of giving into peer pressure," Kelsi said. Ryan teasingly rolled his eyes.

"Oh, Kelsi. You have nothing to worry about." Ryan swung his arm over Kelsi's shoulder and they walked to the front door. Kelsi could feel her heartbeat steadily climbing, which made her nervous. What if Ryan could tell? Then getting nervous only made her heart rate increase even more, it had to be completely obvious! Why did Ryan even have this effect on her, she was completely over him! However, if Ryan could tell how anxious he was making her, he wasn't letting on. Evidently, him swinging his arm over her was supposed to be "friendly," but it was just sort of awkward. In fact, if he had had more to drink than the few sips of champagne at dinner, Kelsi would assume he was drunk. After all, he was all just grabbing her arm, high-fiving her, walking in a somewhat romantic fashion with her! He was clearly going crazy, maybe this was another sign of his recently rebellious nature, kinda-sorta acting overly-friendly with his one-time girlfriend in a manner than could be misunderstood as flirting! _Or maybe _I'm _going crazy!_ Kelsi thought.

"Uhm ... are you okay?" Ryan had let go of Kelsi and was staring at her with a weird look on his face. Kelsi was suddenly aware of the fact that they had stopped walking and were now in front of the entrance. Kelsi realized that she had zoned out while they were walking.

"Oh. Yeah," said Kelsi, her face burning red. She hoped she hadn't been talking under her breath; she had been having a real problem with talking to herself recently.

"Let's see if this door is open," Ryan said. Swinging to the side the front handle, he opened the unlocked door to the front entrance of East High. Smiling cheekily, he turned to Kelsi and said, "Welcome back to high school!"


	7. Chapter Six

Hellooo! First off, huge thanks to Hyper Mint, musicfreak1107, digigirl02, cyn23, jenpen1027, krfan and kaydeek for reviewing on the last chapter. I really appreciate it. Another thank you to people who have added this to favorites/reviews after the last chapter!

For some reason this chapter took me a while longer than the other chapters. I'm not entirely sure why - I think I'm just really into a summer-mode ... my mind is just completely blank :) Sadly, a longer update time doesn't ensure greater quality, but hopefully whoever reads this will like it! I'm just not a huge fan of my own work - I find that generally everyone is their own worst critic :)

_TEN DAYS UNTIL HARRY POTTER AND THE HALF-BLOOD PRINCE!_

Hope you enjoy the sixth chapter! (Still own nothing ... I also don't own _The Sound of Music_)

**Show Me What I'm Looking For**

Chapter Six

-------------------

Through the dark, Kelsi could barely make out the front hallway of her former school. She pressed her glasses up higher on her nose to get a better look, but it was little help. She considered saying to Ryan that they should leave, there was no point in looking around when they couldn't see, but he walked over and flipped the light switch to on. How obvious.

"I haven't been here since the end of freshman year of college," said Ryan cheerfully, taking in the area. "Sharpay _insisted_ I come and watch the drama club's spring musical - you know, since she was co-director and all. _The Wizard of Oz. _They chose a pretty simple musical, 'cause they lost most of their primary cast members from the last couple of years after our class left. It was good, but not like the original productions our class had. Just less ... special."

"I haven't been here since graduating," Kelsi said.

"Then I'm glad I brought you back!" said Ryan. He walked up the hallway, stopping to read various posters and signs hung along the wall. Kelsi nervously followed; even though the entrance door had been unlocked, she couldn't get it out of her mind that she was going to end up in jail.

"The spring play starts this weekend," he noted, reading a poster for East High's upcoming production of the musical _The Sound of Music. _"I would say we should go, but I doubt if we'd know anybody in the show. It's crazy, because the kids who were in middle school when we were doing the plays are the people in the musicals now."

Ryan continued his march up the hallway and Kelsi continued to walk behind him. "Where should we go first?" he asked. _Home?_ Kelsi though weakly, but she just shrugged.

"We can just look around, see what we run into then," he said.

And with that, they were off.

"So, uh, what does Sharpay do?" Kelsi asked Ryan as they walked past rows of lockers.

"She's an actress, naturally," answered Ryan. "The struggling kind, though. She's been getting bit jobs here and there in television shows, but I think she's looking for a more steady career. She tried out for some Broadway shows, but didn't get anything, so she moved to California."

"You didn't help her?" Kelsi asked teasingly.

"Hey, she didn't try out for _Hairspray_!" Ryan replied, mock defensively.

Kelsi smiled and they proceeded on, until Ryan stopped automatically.

"What happened to my locker?" he asked, in apparent shock, though it was clear he was joking. He was right though - something was different about his locker. It was plastered with signs encouraging its current 'owner' in the various high school sports he participated it. "Not one sign for the Drama Club?"

Kelsi laughed as he shook his head in pretend sadness. It was funny how this was just a simple sign of how things had changed since they graduated from East High.

"Your locker," Ryan said, leaning against a locker not far down from his own, "looks completely different, too."

Indeed it did. Her former locker wasn't covered in any decor, it was just its lovely (slightly dull) gray self. Her locker wasn't done out with anything, just there to serve its purpose. _Not unlike me_, Kelsi thought grimly. Her old locker was now inhabited by a guy like the one using Ryan's - by that, she meant a sports nut. The grey was impossible to see through the mess of signs celebrating the guy's athletic achievements. How funny that two hardcore members of the Drama Club's lockers would be taken over by two super jocks.

After commenting on their lockers, they walked automatically over to the classroom they spent most of their (memorable) time during class. Naturally, Ms. Darbus's class. They both had her for homeroom in the morning, and though it was the general consensus that Ms. D was utterly crazy, they were both always fans of hers. Eventually, she became pretty much everyone's favorite teacher. Apart from managing their homeroom class and teaching, she served as the Head of East High's Drama Department. Her room was brightly decorated with memorabilia from various musicals - or it was, at least.

"What happened here?" Ryan asked, awestruck by the room they had approached. All of the collection of posters and decor that were was strewn across the walls of Ms. Darbus's room were gone. A long red curtain in the front of the room was replaced by a dry erase board covered in mathematical functions. Ms. Darbus's room had been turned into a math class!

"Do you think she still works here?" Kelsi asked.

"I thought so," Ryan said, looking around the area. "I actually could never see her leaving. I mean, why would she leave?"

"But unless she turned into an algebra teacher, this isn't her classroom," Kelsi pointed out.

"Maybe we should continue looking around," Ryan said.

"I don't know, it's getting late," Kelsi said. She had just expected them to quickly drop in, glance around the hallway, and leave. She wasn't anticipating some sort of investigation!

"Nah," Ryan disagreed, and he headed off. Again. Faintly, they could hear noise off in the distance. Attracted to it, they walked slowly down the stairs into the first floor, being led by the source of commotion, which turned out to be the gymnasium. Some guys were hanging around, shooting baskets.

"I though the season was over," Ryan said, puzzled.

"It could be an open gym, for practice for next season," Kelsi suggested, though she couldn't understand why anyone would want to be playing basketball so late. East High and their basketball team.

"Basketball games were a lot of fun," Kelsi said, leaning against the doorframe.

"Yeah, for you!" Ryan said. "I had to wear that wildcat mascot costume thing! I mean, I brought it apon myself, so I _guess _I can't complain. But man! It could get _hot_ in there! Still fun though."

Ryan walked in the gym and sat down on the first row of the open bleachers with Kelsi. A few of the players looked over at them, but didn't say anything.

"You live in Albuquerque, how is the basketball team?" Ryan asked.

"I think they're still pretty good, I don't really follow them that much," Kelsi admitted. "I know that everyone in town in still obsessed with them, so they must be good."

"Our class was just the best at everything, though," Ryan joked.

"I guess so!" Kelsi said.

"Do you remember prom?" Ryan asked. Uh, well, of course?

"Yeah," said Kelsi, smiling though she was embarrassed that Ryan brought up that particular memory. She was surprised too, they had been avoiding discussing _their_ past while talking about the past. Considering that they went to prom together, it was technically a part of their collective past as a former couple. They weren't dating yet, but that was when Kelsi began to like him more. She assumed he brought it up because they were in the gym, where prom took place (though it looked entirely different - for starters, there was a giant tree in the center of the gym). "That was fun, getting to hang out with everyone before leaving and stuff. Plus I was getting so stressed about the play! It was good to just be able to calm down and have a good time. It's pretty funny though, because I nver thought I'd be the type of girl to go to school dances or anything."

"That was a lot of fun," Ryan agreed. He leaned back against the bleachers for a moment, looking thoughtful, when he asked, "Wanna keep looking around?"

The truthful answer? While Kelsi was actually beginning to enjoy wandering around her old school, she was still worried that they weren't supposed to be there - even with the basketball players in the gym! She just wasn't one for doing anything that felt like rule breaking. Regardless, she gave a small nod. Ryan cheerfully jumped up and they entered back into the hallway. He wasn't exactly dwelling anywhere, Kelsi observed - apparently, he wanted to hit all of the important places in the school, but there wasn't much of a need to spend a lot of time at the areas once he got there.

Kelsi's eyes darted around the first floor hallway as they made their way through. There were so many memories that she had associated with East High ... some good, some bad, some funny, some plain weird. Though Kelsi had seldom thought over her time in high school after graduating, (despite everyone's sadness over leaving and promising to not leave everything behind) she did have a good time. It was sort of nice that she thought over that time as a good period in her life, because the first two-and-a-half years of high school were kind of horrible. She belonged to a group, but she didn't belong in the group - she wasn't happy and she didn't have any real friends. Naturally, she fell in the "drama kids" clique, headed by Sharpay and Ryan. Rather than feeling friendliness towards them, however, they actually frightened her. Of course she left when she became good friends with Gabriella and instead of "hanging out" with a group determined by talents or interested, she hung out with a close-knit circle of genuine friends. That meant leaving Ryan behind, and she really thought nothing of it at the time. Thinking this over, Kelsi giggled softly at the irony. She was afraid of Ryan when they were in the same group, but they started getting along really well when she formed friends with people generally opposed to his twin sister.

"What are you laughing about?" Ryan asked, pausing in his walking.

"Oh, nothing, I was just thinking," she stammered in response. Ryan raised his eyebrows at her, and Kelsi sighed. "I was actually thinking of when we didn't like each other," she admitted.

"When was that?" Ryan asked, before mentally slapping himself across the forehead. _Duh, when we broke up! Especially when she found out about Amy, I guess. But we didn't like each other? I thought we were just not talking!_ "I still lik - "

"Up until the summer before senior year," Kelsi answered. _Oohh_, Ryan thought. This made more sense. _But we didn't like each other?_

"I didn't know we weren't getting along!" Ryan said. Now it was Kelsi's turned to raise her eyebrows at him ... but she stopped herself from doing so, because Ryan seemed legitimately confused by what Kelsi said.

_Ugh, I'm such an idiot!_ Kelsi mentally reprimanded herself. Now Ryan wasn't going to like her in the future, and they were just starting to be something like friends again! Not that Kelsi thought they needed to be friends again, of course ... but that was before they started actually getting along. Now she kinda liked them being friends?

"We weren't exactly talking and stuff, so I just thought that maybe you didn't like me," Kelsi mumbled quickly, embarrassed.

"Well, I'm sorry you thought that, and I still liked you," Ryan offered. "I just did whatever my sister did, you know, so - not that she disliked you!"

Kelsi almost laughed. Sharpay didn't dislike her? That was a lie if she ever heard one! However, she understood that _Ryan _had liked her and got the point he was trying to make - that he was sorry.

"It's fine, Ryan. Really, I don't care anymore, it was seven years ago," said Kelsi, who regretted ever bringing the topic up. Ryan nodded and they started again to walk further down the hallway. _Great, just when the tension was starting to thin ... or thicken less, or something along those lines. Way to go, Kelsi, now things will be even more awkward, all over again! _Indeed, they didn't say anything for a long moment, until they passed the boy's locker room door, which Kelsi looked over at for a moment. Ryan caught Kelsi staring at the door and smirked at her.

"If you want to go see fourteen year-old boys change, go ahead, but I think I'll keep looking around," he said teasingly. Kelsi turned a deep shade of pink, but she knew Ryan was joking. The sudden build up of tension that had formed vanished, and Kelsi knew Ryan could care less about what she had said.

After a not-too-long walk past old classrooms, they approached the cafeteria. Not surprisingly, Ryan made the open the door, but it was apparently locked.

"Locked? Darn it!" he said. "There are some weird memories from inside that cafeteria. I probably remember more stuff that happened _there _than in class, which is kinda sad." Kelsi giggled.

"Me too," she agreed. "Remember the day when it came out that Troy and Gabriella had tried out for the musical?"

"Yeah, it was insane!" he said. "People were just going crazy, losing their minds! Over a high school musical of all things? It didn't seem so ridiculous at the time, but now thinking it over ... our class was pretty strange."

"You were one of the people most angry!" Kelsi pointed out.

"Which I fully admit was idiotic," Ryan said. "You know ... apart from having some strange stuff go on in our cafeteria, we also had the best food, like, ever. Seriously, sometimes I think it may have been better than some of the fancy overpriced restaurants in New York."

"I know!" Kelsi said, as they backed away from the closed doors down the first floor. "Most high school cafeteria food is supposed to be really gross, but I actually liked the stuff here."

They passed some more classrooms. A few had names on the doors of teachers that Kelsi recognized, though many of the current teachers were foreign to her. Yeah, things had changed.

There was only one other "monumental" place on the first floor of East High School, so Kelsi assumed she already knew where they were headed.

"The theatre here," Ryan said as they walked, "is a thousand times larger than the place where we staged _Hairspray_ before it got back to Broadway."

"I'd bet," Kelsi said. The theater at East High was mindblowingly huge, especially for a high school. The room was down the hall, but Kelsi was beginning to hear faint sounds coming from the auditorium.

"I told you they would still be rehearsing," Ryan said to Kelsi in a slightly smug manner.

"Probably not for much longer, it has to be getting really late," she said.

As they approached the theater, the noise became more audible. Ryan pushed the back door entrance open - he was right, they were in the midst of a rehearsal. Groups of high schoolers sat scattered amongst the seats in the theater, watching a male and a female on stage singing. The stage was completely set up for their opening night, and Kelsi had to say, the stage looked incredible. Even if they didn't have original shows anymore, they had one of the nicest sets she'd ever seen. It was sort of funny looking though, because while the stage looked so professional, the two singers were wearing t-shirts and sweat pants.

Ryan slipped down in the back row of seats and sat down. Following suit, Kelsi sat down and looked around the large room. It looked almost exactly as Kelsi had remembered it on the last time she had been in it, the day of the musical she had put together with Ryan. She had had a really good time during the production of the production, it was probably the most fun a time she had ever had at East High. The show was life-changing, too ... it was basically her "audition" to Juilliard. Technically, that was also when things between her and Ryan started off, (though they didn't officially "get together" until college) which was something that could probably be considered life-changing, even if they weren't together anymore - he had been a huge part of her life for over four years. Realizing how deeply she was zoning out, Kelsi jerked up and began to listen in on the music. "_I am sixteen going on seventeen, innocent as a rose_," the girl on the stage sang, as the actor she was singing to chuckled with a little too much enthusiam.

"She's _really _good," Ryan whispered as she continued to sing.

"Oh, so now you're going to start asking out high schoolers?" Kelsi teased.

"What?" Ryan asked, confused. "No, I was just saying - _oooh_. Yeah, I see what you're doing now, you're getting back at me for saying you wanted to look at fourteen year-olds change. I got it. Hah hah, very funny Kelsi."

"_I am sixteen going on seventeen, I'll depend on you,_" the girl sang. The duo on the stage proceeded to dance together for a few moments, before the guy (very nervously, it seemed) leaned in towards the girl and gave her a brief, awkward kiss. The audience erupted into laughter filled with scattered applause and jeers.

"Hm, how mature," said Ryan sarcastically.

The two actors , who'd ran off of the stage at the end of the song, (per the choreography, it seemed) walked out to center stage, both blushing deeply.

"That's enough, that's enough," said a familiar voice. A sudden silence fell over the crowd, as Ms. Darbus (who was sitting somewhere amongst the first few rows) stood up to address the two students. "Amanda, your singing has improved drastically, well done. Joe - you as well. However, the dancing needs work, practice that before rehearsal tomorrow. You two need to work together more, work on making the end so ... uncomfortable. Keep going over that number, we start dress rehearsals in two days. Other than that, good work."

"I figured she was still here," Ryan muttered quietly to Kelsi.

"It's getting late, so everyone can go home. Tomorrow we're running the show without costumes; we don't have time to stop and go over everything for too long, so everyone make sure all of your lines are memorized, this should've been done weeks ago!" she said. There was a murmur of consent from the crowd, who got up out of their seats to go home. "Nice job today," Ms. Darbus added on after a pause. "Laura, I'd like to talk to you before you leave." A girl seated at the piano, hopped up and hurried over to Ms. Darbus as everyone else hastily exited. Kelsi felt sort of bad for the high schoolers - when she was working on the plays they would stay late, but not _this_ late.

Kelsi's apparent "replacement", the piano girl named Laura, left after talking to Ms. Darbus for several minutes. Soon, the entire auditorium was empty with the exception of Kelsi, Ryan and Ms. D. Kelsi and Ryan got up to leave, but Ms. Darbus turned around. She observed them for a moment, her face a look of obvious surprise.

"Mr. Evans? Ms. Nielson? What are you two doing here?" she asked.

"Nothing really, just hanging out," replied Kelsi. Ryan gave her a weird look and said, "We were nearby in town so we thought we'd drop by. We're just looking around."

"Ah," said Ms. Darbus. "Well, I haven't seen either of you in quite some time! Do you still live in Albuquerque?"

"No, actually I'm home to plan for my wedding," Ryan said. Ms. Darbus smiled as she looked back and forth from Ryan to Kelsi.

"I see! So you two are engaged now! I'm delighted to see that you two are still together, then," she said, nodding very knowingly.

"Uh, actually we're just friends now," Ryan said.

"Oh," said Ms. Darbus. Another look of surprise. "Well, nevertheless, congratulations!"

"Thanks," said Ryan.

"What about you, Kelsi? What brings you back to Albuquerque?" she asked.

"I, uh, actually live here now," Kelsi said.

"Oh," said Ms. Darbus again. Kelsi never quite understood why she got a look of surprise whenever she said she was still in New Mexico. "Are you still writing music?"

"Yeah, here and there," Kelsi said.

"Well that's good," Ms. Darbus replied.

"So you still teach here? Your classroom was gone," Ryan said.

"My former classroom was switched to an Algebra 1 room. I teach downstairs now. Though it was quite sad to say goodbye to a classroom that held so many fond memories, it is more convient to have my room down here," Ms. Darbus replied. Kelsi had to smile, Ms. D would be a teacher so upset to switch classrooms. However, it was true that a lot of great memories came from that room.

"I'd better be going," Ms. Darbus said, checking her watch. "I have to be here again in about seven, eight hours, so goodnight to both of you. It was nice to see you two again."

"Bye," Ryan and Kelsi both said in unison. The three all shared momentary smiles, and Ms. D left.

"That was a quick meeting," Kelsi said, as she followed Ryan out of the auditorium. "What time is it anyways?"

"Eleven," Ryan said after consulting his cell phone. Kelsi groaned.

"Okay, okay! We can go home!" Ryan said. She sighed in relief, before Ryan asked, "Is there anywhere else you want to go?"

"Well ... " Kelsi said. She could only think of one place left that she would want to go to. It was also the only place she would consider looking at after Ryan gave her a pass to go home like she wanted so badly. "Do you want to go see the music room?"

"I figured you'd want to go there," said Ryan, as they walked to the staircase. The music room, located on the third floor, was the place Kelsi remembered spending the most time in high school. When she was upset, when she was bored, when she was inspired, when she was early for school, whenever, really, she went to the music room. It was the one place she had spent more time in than the auditorium, and it was easily her favorite place at East High.

As much as Kelsi wanted to see the music room, it felt more off limits than the other places they had visited on the first floor. It seemed a little far away, and one place not likely to see much action past school hours. Kelsi's anxiety level started to rise a tad, (especially now since the students in the play were going home) but she was almost too excited to see the room to care too much. After all, if they were going to be arrested, wouldn't it have happened by now?

"Am I really that predictable?" Kelsi moaned.

"Yup!" Ryan said happily. "To me, anyways."

Both ran up the three flights of stairs (_"I forgot how steep these things were!" _Ryan said, panting) to the first room in the hall.

"Behold ... the music room," he said dramatically, opening the unlocked door to the room that had practically been Kelsi's second home throughout high school.

However, high school was six years ago. The room in question was nearly unrecognizable.

"Wow!" said Ryan, looking around as they door swung closed behind him. "They've spruced up the place!" The walls were plastered in posters for artists varying from Britney Spears to Bach. Whatever wall was left was painted a dark red. New desks were lined up facing a dry erase board covered in music notes. Instruments that appeared to be brand new were stationed behind the desks, including a new Baby Grand that was absolutely gorgeous ... but not the one Kelsi knew. The place looked nice, but it wasn't what Kelsi had expected.

"It was fine the way it was!" Kelsi said. It was a perfectly wonderful music room! Homey, comfortable, relaxing ... this just felt so much like a classroom. "Honestly, look at some of these posters!"

"It's _The Evolution of Popular Music_," Ryan said very knowingly. Kelsi raised her eyebrows, until she realized he was reading off of the board, which explained the display. Scanning down on the writing, he continued on, "From classical music all the way to alternative, pop and show tunes, music sure has evolved! These posters represent some of the most popular or influential musicians of their time and genre - including everyone from Hank Williams to Scott Joplin."

Interesting and cool as this idea was, it was strange to see her room like this. Not that it was "her" room, per se ... but it was strange.

"How symbolic is this of everything that's changed," Ryan said, looking around. Kelsi couldn't help but agree ... everything had changed. Nothing at East High was how she had remembered it. Things had been mixed up and thrown around until nothing was quite like how it used to be. Like she had related her personality to her dull locker, Kelsi couldn't help but compare her life after high school to what had happened at East High. Nothing was quite like how things were at East High - and while Kelsi was much happier as a young adult over a teenager, it was strange how in some ways she yearned for the past ... and this included wanting back the original music room.

"Geez, how deep," Kelsi said, though she had privately acknowledged the statement's truth in her mind. Kelsi walked over to the new piano she was standing in front of and sat down. It felt unfriendly, she was unsure why this fact upset her, she sighed heavily. Too heavily, evidently, as Ryan whipped around from examining a Rolling Stones sign and walked over. Kelsi half-expected him to make a teasing comment, as they had been throwing pretend insults back-and-forth at each other ever since they got to East High, but instead, he looked sort of concerned.

"Are you okay?" he asked. "You seem ... upset." Ryan had hit the nail on the head with that one.

"I'm fine, just thinking," Kelsi said.

"Wanting to relive your glory days?" Ryan asked very seriously.

"No!" said Kelsi. "I'd like to think that high school wasn't the peak of my lifetime. 'My glory days' haven't passed by yet."

"Good for you," Ryan said, sitting down on the bench next to Kelsi.

Kelsi's mind involuntarily flashed back to when Ryan asked her to the prom, mid-way through singing a song she wrote for the school play. Well, come to think of it, he didn't really _ask _her so much as _tell_ her. Regardless, one day when she was writing music in the room they were in, he asked her. So this moment was sort of a moment that mirrored that moment, Kelsi noted. _Well, not really, because he isn't about to ask me to a high school dance._

"Hey, when do you want that song back?" Ryan asked. "I've been working on it, though you don't have to use what I put, I'm just writing whenever I'm bored. You said the group needed it soon when I took it? I can bring it back to you next time we meet up - "

"If you're actually working on it, you can continue for however long you need," Kelsi interupted Ryan. "I'm feeling uninspired in the music department." Not entirely true, but whatever inspired her was just something she didn't want to have committed to paper. The Ryan-Amy situation, which was taking over her free-time and life? One of the things.

"Okay, cool," Ryan said. "It's so cool that you're still writing for people, I would hate to think that you stopped. You had - have, I mean - a real talent for writing. And it's great that you write for lesser-known bands!"

"Yeah ... thanks," Kelsi said, avoiding his eyesight. _Please don't let that song become at all popular! _she thought urgently.

"No problem," Ryan said. He looked around the room again. "I know I said this, but seriously - everything's completely different, isn't it? Everything has changed. Like, the school is different, friendships and relationships have changed ... and so on."

"Oh yeah," said Kelsi. How true was that.

They sat in silence for a few minutes. It had been such a long, exhausting day; it felt like weeks ago when she listened to Ryan argue with Amy on the phone. She had no idea how late it was, but she was getting really tired ... for a twenty-four year-old, she had little energy. Yawning, she said, "I'm tired, so I guess you'll have to go to work for me tomorrow." She was kidding, but Ryan shrugged.

"Whatever," he said. "I'll need something to do tomorrow morning."

"I was joking," Kelsi said. "You wouldn't even know the music!"

"I've gotten really good at sight-reading," Ryan said. "I'm a lot better at piano than you'd remember!"

"I always thought you were good," Kelsi admitted. "Actually, I had no idea you could play the piano until the end of high school. I was impressed." Kelsi paused. She was doing the same thing Ryan had been doing to her, rambling on with compliments. But she took that as flirting! Well, then now she knew. Ryan wasn't flirting with her, because she wasn't flirting with Ryan. "But I don't think you could learn all of the songs right before church."

"After all the time I've spent over there, I know all of the church songs now," Ryan said. Probably not true, though it was a definite possibility at this point ... "Name a song," he said suddenly.

"A church song?" Kelsi asked.

"Any song," he said.

"_Okay_ ... " Kelsi said. "Uhm ... I don't know, I can't think ... play the song they were singing during the show rehearsal." Ryan raised his eyebrows.

"You mean _'Sixteen Going On Seventeen'_?" he asked. Kelsi nodded. "That's easy!," he said, setting his fingers down on the keys. He paused for a moment, switching his hands to different positions, before settling down and hitting a chord. "_You wait little girl on an empty stage for fate to turn the light on. You're life, little girl, is an empty page that men will want to write on - _your turn!" He continued to play the song, as Kelsi looked at him in confusion.

"Ryan, I - "

"Missed your cue! _You are sixteen going on seventeen, baby it's time to think. Better beware - "_

"What are you doing?" Kelsi asked.

"Singing," Ryan answered simply. Kelsi rolled her eyes, an action imitated by Ryan, who was still playing the song on the piano near-perfectly, though his eyes were off of the keys. "Oh come on!"

"How do you know all of the lyrics?" Kelsi said curiously to Ryan, who shrugged.

"Please, Kelsi, I'm a theater dork!" he explained, grinning. "Now ... _eager young lads and - _"

"Okay, Ryan. I get it. You can play the piano!" Kelsi said, laughing.

"Hey, you asked for this song," Ryan pointed out. "_Totally unprepared are you to face a world a man. Timid and shy and scared are you of things beyond your - "_

"Really! I know you can play the piano!" Kelsi said.

"_You need someone old and wiser telling you what to do! I am seventeen going on eighteen, I'll take care of you,"_ he sang, looking over at Kelsi. "Huh ... I haven't thought about that song in a long time. Not as sweet as it was, it seems sexist ... or age-ist, or something ... 'course, the 'Rolfe' character turns out to be pretty bad in the end ... have you ever seen _The Sound of Music_?"

"A long, long time ago, I don't really remember everything that well," Kelsi said. Ryan, who was still playing the melody of _Sixteen Going On Seventeen_, nodded.

"Your cue again!" he said.

"Oh, no, I really can't sing," Kelsi stammered, as Ryan continued playing the song.

"Yes you can, Kelsi. You know I know you can! Don't you remember the school play?" he asked.

"That was six years ago and I sounded awful," Kelsi said. Somehow, Ryan had convinced her that she was good enough that she deserved some sort of a bigger "spotlight" in the play, in order to showcase her vocal capabilities. Thus, Kelsi ended up singing a few bars of a song by herself. Of course, she personally knew that she did not have any, and she was still unsure why Ryan made her do it, even if people complimented her afterwards.

"You sounded great," Ryan said, shaking his head. Kelsi blushed. "Oh, Kelsi. You're not seriously embarrassed to sing in front of me?"

"What?" Kelsi asked. Yes, she was. But still! That was a little nosy a question! "No, of course not," she said.

"Then sing!" he said. _Ugh, _Kelsi thought. Ryan was making her give into peer pressure again_. _As much as she would rather not, for some reason she opened her mouth and began to sing the lyrics starting from where the part in the music Ryan was playing picked up.

"_I am sixteen going on seventeen, innocent as a rose. Bachelor dandies, drinkers of brandies, what do I know of those? Totally unprepared am I to face a world of man. Timid and shy and scared am I of things beyond my ken. I need someone older and wiser telling me what to do - I am sixteen going on seventeen, I'll depend on you,"_ she quickly sang the song in one breath. Ryan gave her a befuddled look as he sped the song up to accompany her fast singing, but when she finally finished, he smiled.

"Happy?" Kelsi asked.

"You sounded great, Kels-ssi," he said, his voice turning strangely awkward. Ryan was about to call her "Kels," which was how he called her throughout their friendship, relationship and so on. But were they close enough now that he could do that? Since he was unsure, after he caught himself, he drew out the "s" extra long. _Hmm ... sounded like a snake_, he thought.

"Thanks," Kelsi said, turning pink _again_.

"No seriously, you're a great singer," Ryan said.

"And you're great at getting people to do things they don't necessarily want to do!" Kelsi said. They were back to teasing each other, it was easier for Kelsi to do than accept his nice comments.

"Well I _am _an Evans - it's in my blood," he said. Kelsi shook her head at him in disbelief. "Now, would you be fine with me playing the piano for you tomorrow?" he asked.

"Don't worry, you won't have to play the piano for me tomorrow," Kelsi said. "Though you're really, really good. You should play more often!"

"Thanks, Kelsi. And you should sing more often!" Ryan said.

"I don't know about that, but thanks anyways," Kelsi said. Kelsi looked over at Ryan, who was giving her a look that spelled deep disagreement, but he smiled at her ... and Kelsi smiled back. A genuinue smile, not awkward, or teasing, but a smile between friends. _Wait ... does that mean we're friends? _Kelsi wondered. Ryan had said they were friends, but that was an overstatement - they were forced into a vastly uncomfortable situation. They acted cordial to each other. As early as a couple of hours prior, Kelsi was trying to desperately think of conversational topics as they watched a crummy movie! Then they were friends? Maybe they were _meant _to be friends, that's why it felt quick to Kelsi. Maybe they just weren't meant to be a couple! There were lots of couples who remained friends with each other, right? It could be a destiny sort-of thing going on. She knew she was wrong - his "flirting" wasn't flirting, but just being a nice guy! However, it was easier for them to be friends without his crazy fiancée around - and she would be back eventually. Kelsi also still stood by her earlier sentiment that they couldn't be proper friends without talking about the past ... and not _high school _and all of that nostalgia, but _their _past, because they had a crazy history together. Of course, she had made this note when she didn't want to be friends ... but now, she wasn't so sure. After all, what was the worse thing that could happen?

"You're welcome anyways!" he said. He paused. "Hey, I know I've said this before, but I'm really happy that we can be friends. We have a weird past with each other, but it would be really sad if we threw away a potential friendship just because we used to be ... together." Kelsi was taken by surprise with this comment - sure Ryan had said things of this nature a large amount of times, but this had to be the first times either of them had ever even slightly referenced the fact that they did indeed used to be (as Ryan put it) "together."

"Me too," Kelsi said. She braced herself, this had to be the moment where they talked and figured everything out - what happened between them, why they broke up, why he was acting so (almost) flirtatiously with her, all that jazz. "Ryan, I think we shou - "

"What are you two doing up here?"

The door to the music room had opened and a tall man was standing in the frame. From what Kelsi could tell, he was not a police officer, but equally intimidating. She groaned and looked over at Ryan. He looked more amused than frightened, but through his smile, mouthed her a quick "Oops!"


End file.
